Socialist leader Sharad Yadav bids adieu to Lutyen’s Delhi after four decades

In his own assessment, he says he will be remembered for Mandal, caste census, and ironically, the stalling of the Women’s Reservation Bill.

Socialist leader Sharad Yadav bid goodbye to Lutyen's Delhi after nearly four decades. He vacated his 7 Tughlaq Road residence of 22-years on Tuesday, ending a roller-coaster career in Delhi and also bringing to a close an era of socialist politics.

“I am only changing houses, not my politics,” were his parting words. Moments before the trucks carrying the family’s belongings trundled out of the house, he paused to speak to reporters, reminding them of his legacy.

He is hard of hearing and his daughter Subashini Raj Rao has to shout out the questions to him. However, the hearing impairment does not come in the way of clarity of thought.

In his own assessment, he will be remembered for three things - Mandal, Caste Census, and ironically, the stalling of the Women’s Reservation Bill.

The decision by Prime Minister V.P. Singh's government to implement the Mandal Commission in August 1990 upended Indian politics. Mr. Yadav said that it is he who forced V.P. Singh's hand. It was his demand for a caste-based quota within the Women's Reservation Bill that ended up with the second UPA government holding back on the law.

In 2011, he claims, it was on his initiative that the Congress-led government started the caste census, which led to the Socio-Economic Caste Census. The figures pertaining to the caste census were never published. "It was the bureaucracy that muddled the caste census," he said. The Narendra Modi government's reluctance to conduct country-wide caste census is inexplicable, he added. "The caste census will not do anyone any harm," he noted.

He came to Delhi 48-years ago after winning Jabalpur Lok Sabha constituency in Madhya Pradesh at the age of 27-years in the 1974 general elections. He was expelled from JD(U) in 2017 after Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar decided to return to the NDA following the brief experiment of Mahagatbandhan - an alliance with Lalu Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). He was soon suspended from Rajya Sabha too with more than three years of his tenure pending. Despite the suspension, he stayed on 7 Tughlaq Road due to a court order.