PATNA, Aug. 30 -- LJP (RV) chief and Union minister Chirag Paswan on Saturday demanded the resignations of Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) founder and Union minister Jitan Ram Manjhi and his son, Bihar minister Santosh Kumar Suman, for advocating a review of scheduled caste (SC) reservation. Speaking to reporters in Patna, Paswan underscored simmering differences within the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) over the issue into an open confrontation. "If he (Manjhi) talks of introducing the creamy layer concept in reservation, he should first resign from his post. His son Santosh Kumar Suman is also a minister in the Bihar government and if he supports the same idea, he too should resign," Paswan said. He added that if the father-son duo wanted such changes, they should first quit their ministerial posts-one at the Centre and one in the state-and then raise the matter in Parliament. Reservation, he stressed, is not charity but a constitutional right rooted in historical untouchability and social discrimination, not an economic measure open to periodic review. Any attempt to tinker with it, he warned, could push large sections onto the streets and erode Dalit unity as a single social block. The flashpoint is the call for reviewing SC/ST quotas and introducing sub-categorisation so that the most marginalised communities among Dalits receive benefits. Suman, HAM(S) national president and Bihar's minor irrigation minister, has been vocal. "We are in favour of SC/ST sub-categorisation. We are simply asking for a review of the SC/ST quotas. We want quota benefits to reach the least privileged among us. What we are saying is in sync with what the Supreme Court has already said," he told reporters on Friday. Suman also questioned the absence of district magistrates or superintendents of police from the Musahar community and pointed to their abysmal literacy rates, arguing for dedicated sub-quotas for the most deprived without ending reservation or applying creamy-layer criteria. Manjhi has backed the line, framing it as social justice and citing the Supreme Court's 2024 judgment permitting sub-classifications based on empirical data. A day ago, Paswan had trained his gun on the Congress for failing to remove social discrimination despite remaining in power at the Centre for so long. Talking to reporters, he said that the purification ritual was performed at the venue of a Congress rally addressed by party president Mallikarjun Kharge. "The party, which remained in power so long, is now expressing concern over persistent discrimination against Dalits when they themselves had failed to eliminate it," he said, reiterating that reservation's basis is social, not economic, and any change to its constitutional foundation must be brought before Parliament. The debate carries historical echoes in Bihar. Nitish Kumar's government once created a Mahadalit category covering most disempowered SC groups before political pressure expanded it. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's 2015 call for a reservation review during the Bihar Assembly campaign was seized upon by the opposition and is widely seen as having damaged the NDA among Dalit and OBC voters. Within the JD(U), senior leader and former minister Shyam Rajak struck a sterner note, warning that any attempt to review or alter the reservation framework could lead to a "civil war-like situation." "Both Paswan and Manjhi are prominent Dalit faces of the NDA in Bihar and sit in the same Union Cabinet. The rivalry between their camps is not new, but the intensity of a sitting Union minister demanding another's resignation underlines the fierce competition for political space on Bihar's most sensitive issue. For now the dispute remains confined to statements, yet the open confrontation signals deep differences within the alliance over the future of reservation," said Rama Shankar Arya, a social analyst and former professor of Patliputra University....