A delegation of Janata Dal (United) MPs, led by the new party president Lalan Singh, met Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday with the demand for a caste-based census.
Speaking to reporters, Singh said the Bihar assembly had passed unanimous resolutions in 2019 and 2020 for having census on the caste lines, and added that it is now for the central government to take a final decision. He said, Shah assured them that the matter will be discussed.
The JD(U) had also passed a resolution in support of the caste-based counting of population, a move with potentially wide political ramifications, in its national executive meeting on Saturday where Singh was elected its president. Its rival RJD too has been pressing for a caste-based census and even suggested that the State should do on its own, if the Centre isn’t willing.
The Central government had recently again made it clear that it will not include caste wise data on population other than Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in the national Census. The Ministry of Home Affairs said this decision has been taken as a “matter of policy”.
Responding in the Lok Sabha, the MHA noted that a request for the collection of caste data in the Census had been made by some state governments.
“The State governments of Maharashtra and Odisha have requested to collect caste details in the forthcoming Census. The Government of India decided as a matter of policy not to enumerate caste wise population other than SCs and STs in Census,” the MHA said in the Lok Sabha.
In March this year too, the Government had informed Parliament that it was not planning to release the data on caste Census collected as part of the 2011 exercise.
To a question that some Bihar BJP leaders have expressed reservation against such a move, Singh claimed that he was unaware of their stand but noted that the saffron party had also backed the resolutions in the Assembly.