A day after Patna High Court observed that quotas in the municipal body polls were “illegal” in Bihar, the ruling party Janata Dal(U) on Wednesday said that fresh municipal polls in the State would now be held only after “reservations for Other Backward Classes and Extremely Backward Classes, set aside by the court, were restored”.
“There is no illegality in the quotas. They were introduced by the Nitish Kumar Government for Panchayats in 2006 and for urban local bodies, a year later. Now fresh municipal body polls will be held in the State only after quotas are restored,” said JD(U) president Rajiv Ranjan Singh alias Lalan Singh and party’s parliamentary board chairman Upendra Kushwaha.
They also suspected role of the BJP in the issue. “We suspect the BJP’s hand in it. The party and its parent body RSS have always opposed quotas. And if we check the background of the petitioners who had challenged reservations in urban local bodies their link with the BJP will come to the fore. Several BJP leaders even had celebrated the Patna HC order privately. This can be verified,” they alleged while addressing presspersons.
