Uttar Pradesh’s Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya has backed the opposition demand for a caste census, a move that is being viewed by analysts as a ploy to undercut the opposition plan to corner the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the issue.
“I am all for it,” Keshav Prasad Maurya said, adding, “Neither me nor my party are in opposition on the subject,”
Maurya said this in Unnao on Sunday.
Maurya had no answer as to why UP has not yet followed the Bihar example, where a caste census has been announced.
Samajwadi Party was quick to join the issue, saying Maurya’s statement had no meaning.
“Mere statement in favour of caste census has no meaning. This statement should come from Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. If you are sincere then resign from the BJP and join the SP,” the SP in a tweet on Sunday.
In another tweet, the SP said, “By supporting the demand for a caste census, Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya has now raised questions about his own party’s governments at the Centre and in UP. Akhilesh Yadav was the first to raise the caste census demand and has since done that continuously. Now, will Yogi Adityanath tell when, like Bihar, caste census will be ordered in UP?”
The demand for a caste census -- or scientific count of castes last undertaken in 1931 -- is based on the premise that it will help the government rework social justice rollout and identify such caste groups that are unrepresented or under-represented. Socio economic caste census was conducted in 2011 but its data was not made public.
Asked about the move by Bihar’s Other Backward Class parties – Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Janata Dal – to go for caste census, Keshav Prasad Maurya, a prominent OBC face of the UP BJP, said: “Caste census taken up by any state government is the prerogative of that government.”
“How can I say if they are acting against the Constitution?” he said to queries on the caste census in Bihar though he firmly made it clear that the BJP and he were not against the demand.
In its first term, the Yogi government had set up samajik nyay (social justice) survey though the survey committee report, which outlined more representation for lesser represented Dalit and OBC groups, has not been implemented yet.
The Om Prakash Rajbhar-led Suheldev Bhartiya Samaj Party, while parting ways with the BJP in 2019, had cited non-implementation of the social justice committee report as one of the reasons for its decision.