Nitish Kumar: It was one of those stormy sessions of the Bihar Assembly when Chief Minister Nitish Kumar lost his cool amidst chaos. Opposition members disrupted proceedings. Above all, reservation was being harped upon. It reached a point when he lost his cool and shouted at RJD woman MLA Rekha Devi, “Hey, you are a woman, you don’t know anything.”
Nitish Kumar Loses His Cool
The incident occurred when Kumar was attempting to address the assembly on larger issues such as caste census and reservation policies. There, his anger was also very evident when he targeted the RJD for not working on women’s rights up until 2005. “Have these people ever promoted any woman? ” Kumar questioned, underlining his point that changes in women’s promotion came only after a certain period. He said this to emphasize what he thought were the inadequacies of the RJD regarding gender equality.
Opposition Disruptions and Kumar’s Appeal
As Kumar stood up to speak, the opposition MLAs were raising a rumpus over reservation issues. The repeated appeal of the Chief Minister to the opposition to hear his entire speech was in the hope that the stand the government took would be very clear. But his appeals fell on deaf ears, and the session continued to be storman indication of deep chasms between the ruling party and the combined opposition over reservation policies and caste census results.
Discussion on Caste Census and Reservation Policies
From the process to decisions regarding caste census, everything was described by Kumar in the course of his speech. According to him, there was a caste census which was done as a collective decision by all parties, and then a survey so that comprehensive data could be gathered. He emphasized that this information was used in making informed decisions with regard to reservation limits.
He pointed out that after finding the caste census, with an increased number of backward people, the government had increased the limit of reservation to 75 percent from the earlier limit of 50 percent. Noting that the central government had recently given 10 percent reservation to upper castes, Bihar implemented the same. Kumar said that the state government had minutely checked the economic condition of every family before these reservations, to make them absolutely fair.
