After RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's strong pitch for a debate on the issue of reservation kicked up a huge political storm, the NDA on Tuesday fielded its ally and Dalit face Ram Vilas Paswan to allay apprehensions in a damage control exercise.
Making it clear that reservation was a Constitutional right of the people belonging to marginalised and weaker sections of the society, Paswan asserted that there no need for “any debate" on the issue.
He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also time and again made it clear that “no power in the world” can abolish the Constitutional provision of reservation, accusing the Opposition parties of “once again creating confusion” in the minds of the people on the RSS' chief's remark on the issue.
“Reservation is a Constitutional right and it is the result of the Poona Pact between Mahatma Gandhi and Babasaheb Ambedkar. There is no need for any debate on reservation,” Paswan, Bihar's LJP chief and Union Minister, said in a series of tweets.
He termed the Opposition furore on the issue “baseless.”
“Reservation was earlier limited to the SC, ST and OBC. Narendra Modi government has now provided reservation to economically weaker sections in the upper castes also. So there is no dispute on the issue of reservation now,” Paswan added.
Addressing an event organised by the RSS-backed 'Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas' on Sunday, Bhagwat said there was need for a debate on the issue of reservation in a harmonious atmosphere between those in favour of it and those against it.
Bhagwat said that he had raised this issue earlier too but it got diverted due to “hallabaloo” over his remarks
Bhagwat's remarks stirred a hornet's nest, with the Opposition parties pouncing on the Sangh Parivar next day accusing both the RSS and the BJP of “being anti backward classes.”
BSP chief Mayawati asked the RSS to shed its "anti-reservation mindset,” saying that such a debate would generate an unwanted dangerous situation of doubt.
In 2015, the BJP had lost the Assembly elections in Bihar before the combined might of Lalu Prasad's RJD and Nitish Kumar’s JD-U, who had then made a big issue of Bhagat’s remarks calling for “review” of reservation.