Bhopal: The Congress government’s decision to hike OBC quota to 27% earned it praise from unexpected quarters on Tuesday. RSS activist Bahadur Singh, sitting next to chief minister Kamal Nath at an event in Damoh, lauded him for “doing what no CM has done” and assuring that he will get the rewards.Singh, who heads MP Pichda Varg Sangathan, an organization of OBCs, said: “The OBC communities are indebted after your decision to increase reservation. You are the only CM to have done this. OBCs want to repay the debt in the (Lok Sabha) elections.” What makes it even more interesting is that Singh made the comment at a rally to kick off the Congress campaign for Bundelkhand.In the presence of expelled BJP leader Ramkrishna Kusmaria, Bahadur Singh advised Nath not to give tickets to “those who have crossed over from BJP”.Asked about an RSS functionary sharing platform with Congress, the media in-charge of BJP in Damoh Manish Tiwari said, “Bahadur Singh runs an OBC front and members of all political parties are its members. In today’s programme, he felicitated Kamal Nath as CM for hiking the reservation. Don’t link it with election politics.”District BJP president Devnarayan Shrivastava denied Singh’s association with RSS. “He was divested of all his responsibilities long ago by the Sangh because of such activities,” Shrivastava said.In his speech at the Tehsil grounds, CM Nath spoke about the OBC quota hike, and criticized PM Narendra Modi’s slogans of ‘Skill India, Make in India and Digital India’ as failures, asking the crowd if anyone from Damoh had benefited from these schemes. Nath pointed out that he had kept his word and begun waiving agri loans. About 25 lakh farmers have already benefited and the rest will get the benefits after the Lok Sabha polls, he assured.Referring to the Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi, where the BJP government at the Centre, aims to transfer Rs 6,000 a year the farmers, Nath said: “This is too small an amount, and farmers of Madhya Pradesh can rather pay from their pocket to the Prime Minister.”Aware that he is in the city of former BJP finance minister Jayant Mallaiya, Nath said that when he took over as CM last December, the financial situation was “very bad and government coffers were empty”. “We are putting the state on a growth path,” he said.

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