After the Solicitor General’s intervention in the Supreme Court that the Bihar caste survey case may have a “ramification”, Bihar’s ruling Janata Dal-United (JD-U) on August 22 hit back at the BJP-led Centre, saying “their only objective is to disrupt the caste survey”.
The BJP, however, retorted that it had never backed out from supporting the survey, and the problem was that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar “tries to play both ends”.
On August 21, Solicitor General of India Tushar Mehta submitted before a Division Bench of the apex court comprising Justices Sanjiv Khanna and S.V.N. Bhatti that the issue involving the caste survey may have a ramification and the Union government should be allowed to file its response on legal issues without taking sides.
Also read | Why the caste survey in Bihar worries the BJP
The Supreme Court has given the Union government a week’s time to file its response, and posted the matter for hearing on August 28.
On August 1, the Patna High Court had dismissed a batch of Public Interest Litigations (PIL) challenging the validity of the caste survey and said the Bihar Government’s initiative was “perfectly valid and legally competent”. Subsequently, some petitioners rushed to the Supreme Court to “quash” the State’s decision to hold the caste survey.
“The Union government intervened as it could not find a way to disrupt the survey. At first they tried to derail the process by having PILs filed but failed due to the alertness of the Bihar Government, and the Patna High Court gave the go-ahead for the survey. Now the Solicitor General has intervened. Their only objective is to disrupt the caste survey,” State Education Minister and former Speaker of the Bihar Assembly Vijay Kumar Choudhary told media persons.
“The Patna High Court has quashed the petitions [against the survey]. The Supreme Court has refused to stay it. But now the Solicitor General has intervened. This shows that the BJP wants to hold back the caste survey somehow. This also shows how the BJP is anti-poor, anti reservation, and anti-Backward Classes,” Mr. Vijay Kumar Choudhary said.
Meanwhile, Bihar BJP president Samrat Choudhary maintained that the BJP had always been in favour of the caste survey, the party had agreed to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s request for the survey, and the State Assembly had passed the resolution for it unanimously. The BJP had never backed out, he said.
“But the problem is that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar tries to play at both ends,” Mr. Samrat Choudhary alleged, adding, “The Supreme Court must have called the Solicitor General and he would have gone to the court with his opinion. The Narendra Modi government is committed to the progress of the poor, deprived, and marginalised.”
