Patna: Uttar Pradesh Minister Om Prakash Rajbhar on Thursday charged the Opposition in Bihar with “spreading misinformation” about special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, claiming that “they had hoped to win assembly polls with the help of fake voters”.
The Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) president also felt that the RJD, the main opposition party in Bihar, might ask the Samajwadi Party, headed by former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, to “accommodate” its expelled leader Tej Pratap Yadav.
Rajbhar, who was in Bihar to take stock of his party’s prospects in the upcoming elections, had a free-wheeling interaction with PTI Videos.
“My party enjoys considerable support of Rajbhars, Rajvanshis, Lohars and other extremely backward castes, which have so far never got due representation in Bihar. Our support helped the BJP-led coalition sweep the by-elections held last year, months after it put up a below-par performance in the Lok Sabha polls,” he said.
“We have been in touch with BJP president J P Nadda, who has promised that we will get a respectable share in the Bihar assembly polls. We would prefer to fight as an NDA partner but would not hesitate to go alone if the need arises. We have a solid presence in more than 100 seats. We want to fight more than 20 of these,” Rajbhar said.
Notably, Rajbhar’s party had contested the 2020 assembly polls in Bihar as a constituent of the hurriedly cobbled Grand Democratic Secular Front, which included former UP CM Mayawati’s BSP and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM and had declared ex-Union minister Upendra Kushwaha as its chief ministerial candidate.
The SPBSP, which has six MLAs in Uttar Pradesh, its main catchment area, lost all five seats it had contested in Bihar.
Rajbhar, who got inducted into the Yogi Adityanath cabinet last year, when he returned to the NDA in the thick of Lok Sabha polls, took exception to the Opposition’s charge that the SIR of electoral rolls in Bihar was aimed at “helping” the BJP-led coalition.
He said, “The Opposition is spreading misinformation. If there are names of voters who have died, or have moved to some other place, there is no reason why their names should not be struck off the electoral rolls.”
“The Opposition in Bihar, perhaps, hoped to win assembly polls with fake voters. With such irregularities done away with, that option is closed. So they are crying hoarse,” Rajbhar alleged.
A former Samajwadi Party ally, Rajbhar also made light of the expulsion from RJD of Tej Pratap Yadav, the elder son of founding president Lalu Prasad, who raised many eyebrows when he had a telephonic conversation with Akhilesh Yadav shortly after being disowned by his own father.
Rajbhar said, “Akhilesh Yadav and Tejashwi Yadav (Prasad’s younger son and heir apparent) belong to the same clan. I believe both remain in touch. It is quite possible that a request has been made to Akhilesh Yadav to accommodate Tej Pratap Yadav, by fielding him as a Samajwadi Party candidate.”
Replying to a query, the UP minister said Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, “would do well to talk about the nation instead of US President Donald Trump. Congress had failed to do many things which are being done now.”
Regarding the acquittal of all the accused, including former BJP MP Pragya Thakur, in the Malegaon serial blasts case, the NDA partner said, “It is a court order that we must respect. The Congress had tried to give the incident a particular spin. But it now has egg on its face.”
