Congress' leaked 'caste list' - which lists almost 600 party workers, including Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar, by their caste - is becoming a bigger political embarrassment by the day.
With Assembly elections slated later this year, the Opposition is already training its guns against Rahul Gandhi's claims that the Congress does not believe in caste. "This just goes to show Congress' mentality. They want to take Bihar back to the caste-ridden days.
This is how they have always been," says Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.On Thursday, a social worker filed an FIR against Congress' Bihar incharge Jagdish Tytler and Bihar Congress president Anil Sharma. "I have filed the FIR against them for listing the castes and sub-castes of party workers," explained Dalit activist Bidhan Chandra Rana.
What makes this serious is that the FIR has been filed under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act's Section 31 - a non bailable offence.
An embarrassed Congress has, however, accused the media of stealing a confidential document. "This is an internal Congress document, and should not have been highlighted by the media," Tytler said, adding that the document does not reflect the official policy of the party.
The Congress brass too is trying to downplay the incident, calling it a mistake.