Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav on Sunday condemned DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran's alleged remark that people from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were cleaning toilets and doing other menial jobs in Tamil Nadu.
Yadav, who is known to share personal equations with Stalin, said, "We look upon DMK as a party which shares our ideal of social justice. Its leaders should avoid saying things that run counter to the ideal". Yadav said like his RJD, the DMK headed by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin was a party that believed in social justice and it was unbecoming of a leader of such a party to have made such a remark, as reported by news agency PTI.
"Had the DMK MP highlighted caste iniquities, had he pointed out that only people from some social groups took up such hazardous jobs, it would have made sense", said the RJD leader.
The Bihar Deputy CM said that that people should be respectful towards those coming from other parts of the country. "But to speak disparagingly of the entire populace of Bihar and UP is reprehensible. We condemn it. We believe that people should be respectful towards those coming from other parts of the country", asserted Yadav, as quoted by PTI.
Maran's recent remarks in Tamil triggered a row in which the former Union minister had laid emphasis on the importance of English education.
Maran had claimed that those who acquired proficiency in English got respectable jobs in the IT sector unlike residents of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, who knew only Hindi and ended up migrating to richer states like Tamil Nadu for "cleaning toilets and roads and working as construction labour," as quoted by PTI.
The ruling Mahagathbandhan in Bihar, of which RJD is the largest constituent, and the DMK-helmed Secular Progressive Alliance, are now part of the INDIA coalition.