On Monday, a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition has been filed in the Patna High Court challenging the decision of the Bihar government to increase reservation in the State from 60% to 75%. The PIL plea has been filed by Gaurav Kumar and Naman Shrestha.

Following the caste-based survey report, the Nitish Kumar government had taken the decision to increase the reservation for Backward Classes, Extremely Backward Classes (EBC), Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST).

Meanwhile, JD(U) president Rajiv Ranjan Singh “Lalan” on Monday said that he saw “a BJP hand” behind a petition filed in the Patna High Court. “It is all the BJP’s doing. The party is anti-reservations. It had got its supporters to challenge quotas for extremely backward classes in local body polls. But the design was foiled and municipal elections were held with seats reserved for EBCs,” he said.

While, senior BJP leader and former Bihar Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi said that the PIL against the quota hike was filed at the behest of the ruling Mahagathbandhan in the state to defame his party.

Modi further said that when OBC quotas were first introduced in Bihar in the 1970s, “the Jan Sangh (BJP’s predecessor) was sharing power and the Congress was in opposition”. He also lambasted Congress and the RJD, which helms the Mahagathbandhan, for having held panchayat polls “without reserving seats for the OBCs” and added that “backward classes got their due only after a coalition government, of which a BJP was a part, took over”.