Bihar: RJD to stage dharna at all district headquarters today

PATNA: The RJD workers will stage dharna at all the district headquarters on Saturday to mark Mandal Diwas. They will also demand caste-based census, filling up of backlog vacancies for reserved categories and implementation of all the Mandal Commission recommendations.
Party members will march to the collectorate in their respective districts and submit a memorandum to the district magistrate with their demand to be sent to the Prime Minister. In Patna, this protest march will be led by the leader of the opposition in the state assembly, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, from the RJD headquarters on Beerchand Patel Path.
RJD state spokesperson Chitranjan Gagan said the party members as well common people will be participating in the protest march for the rights of the reserved category of people. “We will continue with our demand for caste census, which is to provide proper benefits to the people who belong to the reserved categories. Our party president Lalu Prasad ji had raised this issue in Parliament in 2010 and had also led a massive protest in Patna,” said Gagan, while lashing out at BJP for creating obstacles and not letting it happen.
“When a memorandum for caste census was being passed in the Bihar assembly, BJP MLAs had given their consent. Even Rajnath Singh had earlier promised that caste census will be conducted in 2021. But now they take a U-turn. BJP has exposed its dual face and how it is guided by the RSS, which is against reservation and anti-backward caste and extremely backward caste people,” added Gagan.
Talking about the preparation for the Saturday protests, another RJD spokesperson Mritunjay Tiwari said apart from district headquarters, party members will raise their demand even at the block level. “It will be a massive protest,” he said.
RJD seems to have become more active with party members hitting the road against the NDA government at the Centre as well as in the state. In July, the RJD had staged protests for two days against inflation and price rise.