Patna: Stirring yet another controversy, “The upper caste people are foreigners and descendants of the Aryan race…they have come here from foreign countries. Only tribals and Dalits are indigenous people,” said Bihar Chief Minister, Jitan Ram Manjhi, who belongs to the community of Maha-dalits.Â
The opposition BJP has accused Manjhi of “stoking caste tension” in the state with his remark that “upper caste people are foreigners.”Â
Manjhi was speaking at a function in Bettiah when he delivered his new controversy.Â
The Chief Minister’s speech was aimed at exhorting his audience to educate themselves and become politically aware to ensure that they can play a pivotal role in government formation in Bihar, which votes for a new assembly next year.
BJP’s Sushil Modi has accused Manjhi of “trying to sow a wedge between different sections of society by questioning the ethnicity of the upper caste people, which may stoke caste tension in Bihar.”
The BJP leader alleged that Manjhi’s gaffe was not the first instance when he had tried “to divide the people on social grounds.”Â