Nitish govt to give land to EBCs

PATNA: Fresh from a thumping victory in the last year's Assembly polls, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has now made sure to unveil one policy decision after another which could erode the support base of Lalu Prasad, Ram Vilas Paswan and the Congress.

The extremely backward castes (EBC), accounting over 30% electorate, had rallied behind Nitish Kumar in the Assembly elections and in one stroke now, the government has made them a beneficiary of land scheme. All those EBC landless families and below the poverty line will be provided 3 dismal of homestead land, an astute move that will further help consolidate the support base for the ruling NDA among the EBCs. Earlier, the NDA government had provided reservation to the EBCs but the decision to allot land to those below the poverty line will hurt the interests of the RJD and the Left parties, including the CPI(ML) which has had a substantial following among the EBCs.

Apart from the EBCs, the government has also declared it would also allot 3 dismal of land to the Dushad community. As of now, the Mahadalits, constituting the poorest of the poor among the dalit community, were admissible 3 dismal of land but the Dushad (Paswans) community will now be made part of land beneficiary scheme. Again it is an ingenious move of Nitish Kumar to make inroad into the Paswan vote bank which traditionally has been pocketed by Ram Vilas Paswan.

The government decision to set up a commission for the upper castes will also silence those critics who otherwise alleged that the upper caste constituency largely remained unattended by Nitish Kumar. The Congress, which might have felt that the upper caste vote bank was up for grabs, will now obviously find it difficult to woo the upper castes .

Interestingly, Lalu has gone into silent mode by declaring he would not open his mouth for six months but Nitish Kumar remains proactively engaged in widening his political space at the expense of his rivals.