Rahul Gandhi promises 50% quota in Bihar's private schools, colleges for SC, ST, OBC, EBC; BJP counters

The Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has promised a 50% reservation for SC, ST, OBC, and EBCs in private educational institutions. The announcement was made during the release of the 'Most Backward Justice Manifesto,' ahead of the Bihar assembly elections 2025.

“In Bihar, to ensure that the Bahujans receive their full rights and entitlements, we have today released the historic ‘Extremely Backward Justice Resolution Letter’,” Gandhi wrote on X.

Unveiling the manifesto, Gandhi said it contains 10 resolutions for backward communities in the state.

Apart from the big reservation for admissions in private schools and colleges, Rahul Gandhi said the Congress party would offer 50% quota for SCs, STs, OBCs and EBCs in government contracts worth up to Rs 25 crore and three decimals of land in urban areas and five decimals in rural areas to landless families from the deprived castes.

Addressing the extremely backward classes (EBCs) of Bihar, Rahul Gandhi said a law for protection against atrocities, on the lines of the SC, ST Act will be brought, if the INDIA bloc came to power in the state. The EBCs, according to the caste survey conducted by the Nitish Kumar government a few years ago, comprise 36% of the state's total population.

The Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, who was here to attend the Congress Working Committee meeting in the city, came to the event along with the party's national president Mallikarjun Kharge.

They were joined by allies like RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, whose presence flew in the face of speculations in a section of the media that he was upset over Gandhi's apparent reluctance to formally declare him as the coalition's chief ministerial candidate.

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BJP slams Congress' quota promise

Calling him a ‘nepo kid’, BJP MP and national spokesperson Sambit Patra took a personal jibe at Gandhi and said: “If we look at the history of their journey from Nehru to Rajiv Gandhi, we will understand the kind of mindset that the Congress had towards OBC reservation."

He went on to say that if anyone has done anything for the welfare of the backward classes in the country, it is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who belongs to the OBC category.

"He established the OBC Commission. For the first time, he came up with a 10 per cent reservation for the EWS (Economically Weaker Section) in the all-India quota for postgraduate medical and dental courses scheme. In 2019, the Narendra Modi government provided reservation in central institutions for the recruitment of SC, ST, OBCs to the posts of professors, associate professors and assistant professors," he said.

As the way Congress leaders had locked their then party president Sitaram Kesri in a bathroom, tying his hands and legs on the instructions of Sonia Gandhi, the party kept the "OBCs locked in a room for 75 years" until Prime Minister Modi came and took various measures for their welfare,” the BJP leader alleged.

(With inputs from PTI)