Latest news with #Yadavs
The Hindu
2 days ago
- General
- The Hindu
3 injured in attack on Dalit wedding procession in U.P.'s Amroha; caste abuse alleged
At least three people were injured on Tuesday (June 3, 2025) after a wedding procession by members of a Dalit community was pelted with stones and hit with rods and sticks in Rahdra village in Amroha, Uttar Pradesh. Two daughters of Rampal, a local belonging to the Jatav (Dalit) community, were getting married. Of the two wedding processions on Monday, the first was from Hasanpur, and the other, from Moradabad, arrived later. The baraat (wedding procession) of Sonam Kumari, the older daughter, arrived from Moradabad. The incident took place during the second procession. 'On June 2, a wedding procession was being carried out around 5.30 p.m. Around 15-20 people from the same village, belonging to the Yadav community, forcefully entered the wedding procession and stopped us from dancing. When we opposed it, all the above people used casteist words and attacked us with sticks, rods, knives, and sharp-edged weapons to kill us. I, too, received an open injury on my head and many other small injuries,' Kanhaiya, the complainant, and a resident of Rahdra, said. He said many in the procession received knife injuries. 'The Yadavs said, 'how can people from our [Dalit] community take out wedding processions'?' Mr. Kanhaiya, who belongs to the Jatav community, alleged. Charges have been filed under Sections 191(2) (rioting), 115(2) (voluntarily causing hurt), 109 (attempt to murder), 351(2) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). Police have also invoked the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (Amendment 2015). The case was registered at the Gajrala police station. A video purported to be of the chaotic scene has surfaced on social media. Police said they had to resort to mild force to disperse the crowd and restore order. In view of the heightened tensions, a police force has been deployed to maintain law and order. A senior police officer said that the incident had occurred because the road was narrow, loud music was playing in the background, and the people in the wedding procession could not provide space for the Yadav vehicles to pass. 'This led to an argument, which later turned into an altercation,' the officer said.
News18
3 days ago
- Politics
- News18
Chirag Paswan's Bihar Gambit: Start By Asking For 45 Seats, Deputy CM 'Dream' In The Long Run?
Last Updated: Sources said LJP (Ram Vilas) leader Chirag Paswan is serious about the Bihar assembly polls and is likely to contest from a general seat rather than a traditionally reserved seat The BJP may have made it clear that Nitish Kumar will be chief minister if they win the Bihar assembly election – regardless of the numbers – but Chirag Paswan's desire to leave Delhi and return to state politics is being seen in many quarters as a challenge to the JD(U) leader. Union minister Chirag Paswan, the leader of NDA ally Lok Janshakti Party (Ram Vilas), has been 'positioning" himself to ask for a better share of seats, 45 to be precise, reliable sources told News18. 'Chirag Paswan is aware of the sanctity of an endorsement (of Nitish Kumar) by someone like that of Amit Shah (in the Gopalganj rally). He is not in that race (to become CM), let me be very clear about that. But does he want his party to have a fair deal this election and grow bigger? Yes," said a source on condition of anonymity. Chirag on Monday expressed his intention to contest the assembly election. 'I don't see myself in central politics for too long. My reason for entering politics was Bihar and the people of Bihar. I want to take forward my vision of 'Bihar First, Bihari First'," he said. 'Sometimes, when national leaders contest state elections, it does help the party grow. If my participation helps the alliance and strengthens the NDA's position in Bihar, I will contest," he added. According to sources, Chirag is serious about the election and his party MP Arun Bharti, who is also his brother-in-law, told the media that rather than contesting from a traditionally reserved seat, he will fight from a general seat given he 'represents every segment of society". Sources in LJP (Ram Vilas) said even before their leader's announcement, a quiet audit was being conducted by third parties to find the seat that will ensure a bumper win for him, while also translating into a big help for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Having won from a reserved seat like Jamui and Hajipur (his father Ram Vilas Paswan contested from this seat, which became a bone of contention with his uncle at one point), the Union minister is focused on a general seat like Nawada. 'He will be fighting from Nawada, this Bihar election. It is confirmed," Bharti told News18. The seat has 70,000 Bhumihars, 55,000 Yadavs, 50,000 SC/ST voters and 30,000 each Kushwaha and Muslim voters. It is a mixed constituency that will help him emerge as a face defying Bihar's caste considerations, said people close to him. 'Every alliance leader has the right to operate their party the way they wish to operate. I don't think we need to comment upon it," Bihar BJP president Dilip Jaiswal told News18 in a brief statement, when asked to react to Chirag's intentions. But, why this aggressive push now and can he get 45 seats? Those close to Chirag insisted that he has reason to believe that Nitish Kumar's health may not allow him to complete a full term if the NDA returns to power. In such a scenario, he will have a chance to claim the deputy chief minister's post. At present, he commands a 6 per cent vote share and hopes to increase the bar this time, which is why he wants to bargain hard for 45 seats. Reacting to the seat count, however, a BJP source told News18 that 'we will cross the bridge when it comes". 'It's any alliance partner's right to demand. Last year, after the BJP and JD(U) seat-sharing was done, the BJP had to accommodate smaller allies like the Vikassheel Insaan Party (VIP), led by Mukesh Sahni, from its own quota. Where is the scope? But yes, our leaders will sit with an open mind when the time is right," the source said. In the 2020 election, the JD(U) contested 115 seats but won only 43. The BJP, meanwhile, won 71 out of 110 seats it contested while the HAM won four of seven seats. Vikaasheel Insaan Party won four of the 11 it contested, taking the NDA's score to 125. The LJP, which was part of the NDA, had quit the alliance before the election while the RLSP was also not part of the alliance. First Published: June 03, 2025, 08:30 IST
Hindustan Times
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
TERMS OF TRADE: When the personal is political
Anybody who follows politics in Bihar will know that Tej Pratap Yadav, the elder son of Rashtriya Janata Dal's (RJD) patriarch Lalu Prasad Yadav, is no stranger to controversies and idiosyncrasies. A lot of these were tolerated and taken note of because of who he was — the son of one of the most powerful politicians Bihar has ever seen who is, even today, an undeniable pole of the bipolar polity in the state. The latest controversy around Tej Pratap's expulsion from the RJD – his father and the party's national president announced it on a post on microblogging site X (formerly twitter) – after his revelations of having been in a relationship with a woman should ideally be a completely personal matter for Tej Pratap and his family. However, this is one of the typical cases of the personal being political in a world where politicians seek to preserve and centralise political power by keeping it within the family and clan and sometimes end up harming their cause rather than helping it while doing so. Lalu Prasad's political life, in fact, is a case study of this theory. Lalu Prasad's rise in politics began with what was one of the most important, if not the most important, phases of agitational politics in post-independence India, namely, the anti-emergency struggle. Almost all of India's current senior politicians are from this generation. He began as an office-bearer of the Patna University Students' Union during the emergency and went on to become one of the youngest members of parliament in the 1977 Lok Sabha elections which saw the Congress lose power in the country for the first time. Between 1977 and 1990, which is when he first became the chief minister of Bihar, Lalu's politics was about carefully negotiating the factional fights in the larger socialist camp in Indian politics to preserve his own political standing and settle scores. His elevation to the chief minister's post itself was the result of clever factional maneuvering when he emerged as the underdog winner in three-way fight between himself, Raghunath Jha and Ram Sundar Das. Lalu's political charisma came into full bloom once he got the chief minister's post. He cultivated a strong social-justice and secularism constituency for himself by his aggressive politics against entrenched feudal dominance of upper castes and arresting BJP's Lal Krishna Advani in the middle of his rath-yatra in Bihar. It was this popularity among the socially discriminated and a core voter base of Muslims and Yadavs which saw the Janata Dal under Lalu being re-elected to power in the 1995 elections with a clear majority (which it did not have in 1990) amidst a completely fragmented opposition. Also Read: Lalu expels son Tej Pratap Yadav from RJD over lack of conformity to values The 1995 victory, however, came in the wake of a fragmentation in the wider social-justice base of the Janata Dal. Some of Lalu's important (but non-Yadav) comrades such as Nitish Kumar and George Fernandes walked away from the Janata Dal to form the Samata Party, which was later renamed as Janata Dal (United). This split would lay the foundation of an electoral tie-up between the BJP and the socialists in Bihar, which has proved to be an invincible coalition in the state so far. While Yadav survived the first split in the party and emerged stronger from it in the 1995 elections, he would soon meet a legal rather than political challenge which would take him further towards on Orwellian rather than actual socialism. After being faced with a certain arrest in an ongoing anti-corruption case, he stunned everybody by nominating his wife Rabri Devi – she had no public profile earlier – as the chief minister of Bihar and forcing a split in the Janata Dal to form the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). The fact that Yadav ignored several senior politicians from within his party, many of whom had been his comrades during the days of the anti-emergency struggle and were worthy of being handed the leadership of the party and govenrment, earned him the dubious distinction of a power grabber rather than a social revolutionary against feudal dominance. This was followed by other members of the Yadav family being seen as blatant abusers of state power and responsible for a complete breakdown of law and order in the state. Yadav's brothers-in-laws Sadhu and Subhash Yadav were two such characters. The latter gained extreme notoriety in a case (the Shilpi-Gautam murder case) when bodies of a young couple were found from his official MLC residence and the case was buried as one of suicide in what was alleged to have been murder and rape. It was episodes like these which tainted the Lalu Yadav regime as one of complete lawlessness. The ghosts of this past still haunt the RJD which is best seen in its extremely poor electoral record in urban centres in the state. It was because of this fragmentation in social base and rising discontent against misgovernance along a united opposition that the RJD would eventually lose power to the BJP-JD(U) alliance in 2005. It has not been able to come back to power ever since except when it contested the elections with the JD (U) in 2015. The RJD and JD (U) have not been able to hold on to the alliance on two occasions since 2015. With Lalu himself getting debarred from contesting elections because of his conviction in a criminal case, the 2015 assembly elections – when the RJD was seen as the being the most favourably placed to recapture power – opened the question of next generation leadership in the RJD. The decision once again was taken unambiguously in the favour of making way for the next generation rather than the party's existing leadership. Both of Lalu's sons contested the assembly elections. Also Read: Who is Tej Pratap Yadav? Lalu's ousted son and 'Aishwarya Rai's' ex-husband in row over 'partner of 12 years' To be sure, even before 2015, the RJD had seen one more of Lalu's trusted aides walking out in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. Ram Kripal Yadav was asked to make way for Lalu's eldest daughter Misa Bharti on the Patliputra (rural parts of Patna district) parliamentary constituency in 2014 and he left the RJD to to join the BJP. Ram Kripal had won the Patna Lok Sabha seat twice in the past for the RJD. With both of Lalu's sons being elected MLAs in 2015, it was the younger son Tejashwi who would be given the more important post of the deputy chief minister's post in the new government while the elder brother Tej Pratap was made a minister. Since then, the elder brother has always been trying to make his presence felt in the party by making assertions for leadership even though it is Tejashwi who is seen as the chosen and increasingly more capable successor. On some occasions, Tej Pratap's assertion was just optics while on others, such as RJD's narrow loss in a its strong-hold Jehanabad parliamentary constituency in the 2019 general elections after a rebel candidate fielded by Tej Pratap polled more votes than the victory margin, it was serious nuisance value to the party. Tej Pratap's antiques however have not prevented the rise of Tejaswi Yadav in the RJD and also as the most important opposition leader in the state. However, there is no evidence so far that Tejaswhi can restore RJD's lost electoral dominance in the state. Ironical as it may sound, what could be Tej Pratap's biggest damage to the RJD's and Lalu Yadav's family's political fortunes seems to be the result of a decision where the family most likely prevailed on him. In 2018, Tej Pratap was married to Aishwarya Rai, the granddaughter of Bihar's second Yadav chief minister late Daroga Prasad Rai. Rai's father, Chandrika Rai is a politician himself and used to be close to Lalu Yadav. It was one of those classic cases of two politically important families within the same caste getting into a marital bond. The marriage, which was conducted with much fanfare, however did not last. Tej Pratap filed for a divorce within less than a year and Aishwarya made allegations of dowry and mental harassment against her husband's family. Among the fall-outs of the marriage was Chandrika Rai walking out of the RJD to join the JD(U) in 2020 and even hinting that his daughter might contest or campaign against the RJD and the brothers Yadavs themselves. It is in this backdrop that Tej Pratap's revelations about him being in a relationship for the past 12 years (predating the marriage) with another woman are extremely damning for the Lalu Yadav family. This is because the revelations make it look like the marriage was an act of deceit on the Rai family with the Yadav family knowing about Tej Pratap's relationship. Lalu Yadav's sharp reaction terming Tej Pratap's latest disclosure as an act of extreme moral turpitude is meant to offer plausible deniability to the RJD's first family. The opposition is already using the event to portray the Lalu Yadav family has having deliberately brought dishonour on the Rai family, an act of grave injustice and immorality within one's caste networks. Aishwarya herself has made public statements to the same effect. As the elections come closer, one should only expect this campaign among Yadavs, the RJD's core support base, to grow stronger. The community, which is the bulwark of RJD's political existence in the state will be told that its biggest leaders have brought 'dishonour' to one of their own. In an ideal world, this line of reasoning discussed above would be considered abhorrent and rightly seen as the manifestation of oppressive family structures; whether in good faith or bad, destroying the lives to two adults who should have been allowed to do what they wanted. However, power relations in Indian society are rarely in the realm of the progressive or liberal. Family and patriarchal norms are often used as controlling mechanisms to preserve or perpetuate power even at the cost of sacrificing personal agency, freedom or happiness. The larger cause cited to justify and impose these shackles is societal or clan pride and power. The washing of dirty family linen of the Yadav family in public and its blatant politicisation, something which has only started in this author's view, is only a manifestation of such an attempt gone wrong. The entire episode only underlines retrograde and patriarchal social structures and their deep intersectionality with the pursuit of power in India. What is ironical is that the politician in the centre of the storm is one who is rightly seen as a trailblazer in the fight against weakening feudal exploitation in an Indian state where caste exploitation was among the most violent and entrenched. The lesson to be learnt cannot be overemphasized. A fight for political power against a regime backed by an oppressive social super structure offers no guarantee that it will also purge retrograde values along with the rulers who championed them in the past. These values, which often hold the keys to holding power can very well be equally attractive to the new regime. Herein lies the contradiction of not just Lalu Prasad Yadav but Indian democracy and the battle for social liberation in the country. Roshan Kishore, HT's Data and Political Economy Editor, writes a weekly column on the state of the country's economy and its political fall out, and vice-versa
Time of India
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Tributes paid to 1962 war brave hearts
Ranchi: Hundreds of people on Saturday paid tributes to the soil of Rezang-La , the site where 120 army personnel laid down their lives during the 1962 Sino-India war , which was kept in a 'Kalash' for the public at the IMA Bhavan. Organised by the Akhil Bhartiya Yadav Mahasabha , the Kalash will travel through 19 states and reach New Delhi on November 18. RJD's state vice-president Anita Yadav, the in-charge of the procession in Jharkhand, said the Kalash was then taken on a tour of the city to educate the denizens about the battle of Rezang-La before it headed to Ramgarh. Dinesh Yadav, general secretary of All India Yadav Mahasabha, said, "Yadavs form a large section in Indian army and many of them have been martyred in the line of duty. The community has been raising demand for a separate battalion for it for past 100 years." Welcoming the Centre's decision to conduct caste-based census, Dinesh said political parties can no longer ignore the community.
Mint
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Mint
Caste Census and Bihar elections: OBC figures as BJP's poll wand?
In July 2021, the minister of state for home affairs Nityanand Rai told Parliament that ``the government of India decided it as a matter of policy not to enumerate caste-wise population other than Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), in the Census.'' By May 2025, this policy had been turned on its head. With the BJP government on Wednesday deciding to hold a caste census along with the upcoming Census, the Mandal caste reservations of 1989 have come into a full political circle. Its echoes are aimed for the moment on minister Nityanand Rai's state Bihar, where assembly polls will be held in a few months' time. Bihar has one of the largest number of other backward classes (OBC) in India. While actual figures are at best opaque, UP may have the biggest number of OBCs, that are loosely calculated on estimates based on family registers and other data. Bihar and Andhra Pradesh follow with roughly the same percentage. Yet, this list is not final. The central and state OBC lists differ radically. With state governments constantly pruning and adding new castes, depending on political convenience, it keeps changing. According to the National Commission of Backward Castes, Bihar tops the country with 136 OBCs, followed by 98 in West Bengal. The political point is who will this OBC enumeration benefit? Says D M Diwakar, former Director at the A N Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Patna, and currently associated with Development Research Institute, Jalsain, Bihar: "Whatever the BJP may do now, the fact is that the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) had raised the issue at the national level for the first time, and they are going to gain. A delegation, which included Tejaswi Yadav and Nitish Kumar had met PM Modi in August 2021 but got no commitment.'' Tejashwi Yadav termed the Centre's decision as a victory for his party's stance on the issue. By most educated estimates, OBCs constitute over 50 per cent of Bihar's population today, with Muslims, SCs and the upper castes each accounting for something in the vicinity of 15% each. To have any realistic chances of electoral success in the state, political parties and coalitions must secure a substantial share of the OBC vote, and bolster it with support from some other, non-OBC electorates. Bihar's OBCs comprise numerous caste groups, the largest of which include the Yadavs, Nishads, Kurmis and Koeris. Yadavs, who are thought to form around 15 % of the state population, traditionally favour the Lalu Prasad Yadav-led RJD. Nitish Kumar, Bihar's current chief minister and the leader of the Janata Dal (United) or JD-U, has a large base among non-Yadav OBCs, including his own Kurmi caste, as does the Rashtriya Loktantrik Samata Party leader Upendra Kushwaha, who has appeal among his Koeri caste. Crucially, since 2014, the BJP is said to have consolidated support among the Nishads, believed to constitute at least 10% the state's population, and so the largest caste group among Bihar's Extremely Backward Classes (EBC), a sub-category of the OBCs. This has led to the BJP's consolidation in the only crucial Hindi-belt state that has denied it a full embrace. Theoretically, it puts the saffron combine in a strong position, relying significantly for its own support on the Nishads and some of their fellow EBCs, as well as on the upper castes, which have traditionally constituted a reliable BJP vote bank. In addition, the BJP is also courting a section of the SCs to diversify its appeal—and the Lok Janashakti Party, a constituent of the NDA headed by Chirag Paswan, is expected to deliver support for the BJP-led alliance from the Paswans, believed to account for a third of Bihar's SC population. This time though, the going may get tough for the Ram Vilas Pawan scion, which remains largely unaffected by the OBC reservation. In the 2020 assembly elections in Bihar, it was these factors that propelled the BJP to an all-time high of 74 assembly seats of the 110 contested, an improvement on the 53 assembly seats it won in 2015, coming a close second to the RJD's 75 seats. According to journalist Pranav Chaudhary, the OBC narrative being pursued by Rahul Gandhi has been snatched by the BJP. ``The message has gone down. It is the BJP, which is going to implement the programme, never mind who was demanding it earlier.' Elsewhere in UP, SP boss Akhilesh Yadav tweeted that 'The decision of caste census is a 100% victory of the unity of 90% PDA or "pichre" (backward), Dalit and "alpashankhak" (minority). Due to the combined pressure of all of us, the BJP government has been forced to take this decision.'' Much will depend upon the challenges the enumerators can face in any fresh effort, plus the complexities of the mammoth exercise. Diwakar, however, believes that the sting from the BJP's decision has been substantially softened by the 2022 Bihar caste survey, which had put the OBC percentage at 63.14. Of this, the EBC constituted 36.1% while OBCs were pegged at 27.13 per cent. Elsewhere, Karnataka and Telangana too have made announcements regarding changes and proposals to their respective OBC lists and reservation policies. Karnataka is considering increasing OBC reservation and potentially modifying the existing categories. Telangana has already passed legislation to increase reservation for backward classes, which could exceed the 50 per cent Supreme Court ceiling. Opinion remains divided on who will gain, but the OBCs' value as a vote bank is unquestionable. OBCs comprised 52% of the country's population as per the Mandal Commission report of 1980 and were determined to be 41% in 2006, when the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) took place. There are many who believe that OBC numbers could even be higher. Whatever the BJP may do now, the fact is that the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) had raised the issue at the national level for the first time, and they are going to gain. The 1931 Census conducted by the colonial British government had also put the OBC numbers at 52% of the then total 271 million population of the country. That figure became the basis of the Mandal Commission's recommendation in 1980 to grant 27% reservations to OBCs in education and government jobs, which was implemented only in 1990.
