Bihar NDA allies divided over calls to review reservation policy

RLM and HAM(S) leaders backed sub-classification to ensure reservation benefits reach the most deprived, while Chirag Paswan opposed any review.

The debate over the reservation policy has sharpened further in Bihar, with Rashtriya Lok Morcha (RLM) leader and panchayati raj minister Deepak Prakash becoming the latest NDA voice to call for a policy tweak so that benefits reach the genuinely needy.

The minister’s statement underscores that the policy’s gains must percolate to those still left behind. (ANI)

His remarks follow similar demands from Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) leaders Jitan Ram Manjhi and his son Santosh Kumar Suman, and came as former MP Anand Mohan has also pressed for serious introspection of the decades-old system.

Talking to media persons at Jamui on Saturday, Prakash, son of RLM chief and Rajya Sabha MP Upendra Kushwaha, underlined the need to refine the policy and said social equality cannot rest on reservation alone. Education, he stressed, is the real instrument, and both the government and society must ensure every child is educated so that equality is strengthened. He stressed for sub-classification within the quota so that the benefit reached the deserving target.

This is the third notable intervention from within the NDA fold in recent weeks. Earlier, Santosh Kumar Suman, HAM(S) national president and state minister, argued that after nearly eight decades of independence a review was essential to identify which sections had truly benefited and which—particularly the most marginalised among scheduled castes (SC) such as the Musahar community—remained deprived. He backed sub-categorisation within SC/ST quotas, citing wide internal disparities and the limited success of the earlier Mahadalit experiment. His father, Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, publicly backed the call.

The demand has exposed deep rifts among NDA allies. Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas) chief and Union minister Chirag Paswan firmly rejected any review or sub-categorisation of SC/ST reservations. He maintained that these quotas rest on the historical reality of untouchability and social discrimination, not economic criteria.

The war of words escalated further, as Paswan demanded that Manjhi and Suman resign if they insisted on changes, while Manjhi and his son hit back, saying Paswan should resign first if he was unwilling to support a data-based review aimed at the most deprived. Both sides traded charges of ignoring the poor within the Dalit community, turning an internal policy difference into a public confrontation between two Union ministers from the same alliance.

Leader of the opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav has already declared that no one can dare touch the reservation policy and that it will remain effective in the future. He accused NDA leaders of acting on RSS cues, questioned their commitment to the enhanced quotas once proposed by the Mahagathbandhan (MGB) government, and dared both Paswan and Manjhi to contest from unreserved seats if they harbour reservations about the system.

Former MP Anand Mohan has recently argued that reservation, conceived by BR Ambedkar to bring the socially backward into the mainstream within a limited period, now requires review after roughly 80 years. “New feudal and influential sections have emerged even among the backwards,” he said, “and continuous benefits for them undermine the original purpose; the truly needy must remain the focus.”

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the largest partner in the NDA in the state, has remained largely cautious and avoided direct comment. Party strategists still carry the memory of 2015, when RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s call for a review of the reservation policy was seized upon by rivals during the assembly elections and contributed to a sharp polarisation that hurt the NDA.

That episode continues to shape the BJP’s careful silence on the current debate.