With RJD supremo Lalu Prasad seizing upon RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s call for a quota review to consolidate his voters, BJP president Amit Shah today accused him of speaking a "blatant lie" and insisted his party always supported the reservation policy and wanted no change.

Addressing BJP workers in Begusarai, Shah asked them to effectively counter Lalu’s use of the ‘Mandal’ card by reaching out to every house to highlight the party’s commitment to reservation and said Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the RJD leader wanted to change the poll-time discourse from one on development to quotas.

"Nitish and Lalu are very shrewd politicians. They know their defeat and BJP’s victory is certain if election is fought on the agenda of development. Lalu has come up with a new gimmick that if a BJP government is formed, it will remove reservation.

"I want to say that he is telling a blatant lie. BJP is committed to reservation and wants no change in it. Our workers should go to every house and tell people so. Lalu and Nitish want to misguide people and lead them away from the real issues. BJP is committed to the empowerment of the dalits and backwards," Shah said.

Both Nitish and Lalu had been quick to latch on to Bhagwat’s recent call for a review of the reservation policy to raise an alarm about the possibility of scrapping of quotas for backward classes and dalits in government jobs and admission to educational institutions.

After Bhagwat’s remarks in an interview to RSS organs ‘Panchjanya’ and ‘Organiser’ triggered a political storm, BJP and the Modi government publicly distanced themselves from his comments.

Even today, unfazed by an FIR against him for his alleged casteist remarks, Lalu said he is ready to be "hanged" but will not allow BJP and RSS to scrap quotas for the backwards and dalits, making it clear that Mandal politics will top his agenda for the Bihar polls.

"I am prepared to be hanged, but will not allow BJP and RSS to succeed in scrapping reservations," Prasad, long considered a Messiah of the backward castes in the state, said in Patna.

Reservation continues to be a sensitive issue in the state to which B P Mandal, the author of the Mandal Commission Report, belonged.

Sharp polarisation along caste lines had helped Lalu and his party stay in power for an uninterrupted 15-year stint.

The BJP chief also gave a war cry to his workers, saying all "pseudo-secular" elements had come together to fight them and asking them to work unitedly for the party’s victory as the Bihar assembly polls will set the direction of national politics.

Shah’s call came following a number of dissident voices in the party over ticket allocation and allegation by BJP MP from Ara R K Singh about tickets having been sold to criminals.

"This is time to forget who got ticket and who did not…You must leave all desires behind and work for the goal of party’s win," he said.

Taking a dig at Lalu, Shah said the RJD chief launched his poll campaign from the constituency of his son Tejaswi Yadav even though the seat is going to polls in the third phase.

He said Nitish Kumar’s promise of development if voted back to power was a "mirage" in the company of Lalu, whose tenure was known for "jungle raj", and Congress, which was involved in corruption worth thousands of crores of rupees.

Claiming that the wave in favour of BJP in Bihar was stronger than that in 2002 Gujarat polls, when Modi as chief minister led the party to a massive victory, and last year’s Lok Sabha elections, he said the NDA will get a two-thirds majority.

Amid repeated ceasefire violations by Pakistan, Shah targeted the Congress, saying the Narendra Modi government accorded great importance to national security, which will never be compromised.

"Rahul Baba – nobody now dares to slaughter our soldiers If anybody engages in a misadventure, we enter Burma’s borders and our forces take them out, that’s what Narendra Modi’s government is all about.

"You wouldn’t know understand this because you have got your perspective from your mother’s side of the family," he said, apparently referring to the army’s counteroffensive against insurgents along the Myanmar border in June following the killing of 18 soldiers in an ambush in Manipur.