-Sami Ahmad
PATNA—Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Tuesday evening that the former chief minister of Bihar and backward caste’s icon Karpoori Thakur will be conferred the Bharat Ratna posthumously, the highest civilian award of India. It coincides with his hundredth birth anniversary as his official date of birth is 24th January 1924.
Mr. Modi wrote on his X handle, “I am delighted that the Government of India has decided to confer the Bharat Ratna on the beacon of social justice, the great Jan Nayak Karpoori Thakur Ji.”
His statement on X was followed by a write-up which was carried by almost all the newspapers the next day. This shows the preparedness of Mr. Modi and the BJP to prove itself a great follower of Karpoori Thakur.
Though a popular leader, Karpoori Thakur could not have a full five-year term as chief minister. But his rise from a very humble background to the chief minister post is considered to be quite symbolic. He was the first chief minister to implement reservation for the other backward castes in 1978.
Even before the announcement of the Bharat Ratna to him, a race was on to claim Karpoori Thakur’s legacy in Bihar. Both RJD chief Lalu Prasad and JD(U) chief Nitish Kumar proudly declare Karpoori Thakur as their mentor.
In Patna, the state unit of the BJP is organizing a function to celebrate the birth anniversary of Karpoori Thakur. RJD and JD(U) celebraed the birth anniversary of Karpoori Thakur in Patna today.
As the Lok Sabha election is around the corner, this announcement is being described as a ‘masterstroke’ to woo the backward castes (both OBC and EBC) votes, particularly in Bihar. Time will prove whether it is a masterstroke or not, but it is certainly an attempt to counter the backward politics of Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad.
Analysts say that the BJP lacks any freedom fighters or socialist figures to woo voters, so, it tries to appropriate such personalities. Earlier, the BJP tried to appropriate the great freedom fighter Veer Kunwar Singh also.
It is important to note that Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav had been demanding the Bharat Ratna award for Karpoori Thakur for many years. But the Bhartiya Janata Party government waited for the end of its second tenure to announce that even while riding on the Ram wave after the inauguration of Ram Mandir at Ayodhya. Analysts say that there is no doubt about Ram wave but the BJP is not certain if that will be enough for an electoral triumph.
In 2019, Bharatiya Janata Party-led NDA had won 39 Lok Sabha seats out of 40 seats in Bihar when Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) was in the NDA. One seat of Kishanganj went to Mohammad Jawed of the Congress.
As Nitish Kumar is part of the opposition alliance INDIA, the BJP seems nervous in Bihar even while it has smaller party leaders like Pashupati Kumar Paras, Chirag Paswan, Jitan Ram Manjhi and Upendra Kushwaha in its camp.
One of the reasons for conferring the Bharat Ratna to Karpoor Thakur is considered to be the caste survey done by the Bihar government last year. It is worth mentioning that Karpoori from a Nai (barber) family belonged to the newly coined category EBC or ‘Extremely Backward Class’.
According to the caste survey, the EBC constitutes the highest 37 percent of Bihar’s population. This forces all the political parties to go after the EBC votes. For the BJP, it was easy to garner EBC votes as Nitish Kumar was with them but as he has parted his ways, the BJP is trying hard to woo the EBC votes. It is certain that the BJP will try to pose aggressively as the real champion of the OBCs and EBCs.
It will be interesting to see how this move of BJP is countered by the RJD and JD(U). Bihar chief minister and a former ally of the BJP Nitish Kumar thanked the centre and the Prime minister for this announcement. There are speculations about Nitish’s next move as he sounds too soft towards the central government.
RJD chief Lalu Prasad wrote on X that the Bharat Ratna award should have been conferred to his ‘political and ideological Guru much earlier. “We fought from Parliament to road but the central government awoke when the Bihar government conducted the caste survey and increased the limit of reservation”, he added.
RJD spokesman Chitranjan Gagan said that the Bhartiya Jan Sangh which later became BJP had conspired against Karpoori to deny him support to become chief minister in 1967.
