Headlines
Upper caste can't become Bihar CM: Giriraj Singh
Patna, July 17
Union Minister Giriraj Singh on
Friday said a person belonging to the upper caste cannot become Bihar
chief minister after the upcoming assembly polls in the state.
"An
upper caste cannot become chief minister of Bihar," said Giriraj Singh,
who belongs to the upper caste Bhumihar community, which has a strong
presence in state politics.
After visiting Muzaffarpur, where
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to address a public rally on July 25
to formally kick off Bharatiya Janata Party's poll campaigning, Giriraj
Singh said the upper caste people were only eager for a developed
Bihar.
"Lalu and Nitish should not worry about upper caste, they
should play their caste politics to create divide and hatred in
society," Giriraj Singh said.
Last week, Bihar Chief Minister
Nitish Kumar and his new ally Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad
countered BJP chief Amit Shah for claiming that Modi was the country's
first OBC prime minister.
Both the leaders said H.D. Deve Gowda was India's first prime minister from the Other Backward Classes (OBC).
BJP
chief Shah, last week, said in New Delhi that it was his party that
gave the maximum number of OBC chief ministers and the first prime
minister in Modi.
According to political observers here, despite
Modi's call for an end to caste-based politics in Bihar, a deep-rooted
tussle in the BJP between upper caste and other backward caste (OBC)
leaders, ahead of assembly polls, has put BJP in a dilemma.