The Samajwadi party has demanded that Union Government should make the caste based Census report public so that the state government could extend benefits to the targeted audience as per their caste share.
“The Union Government should release the caste census at the earliest. This will help the governments to evaluate whether the reservation benefits are reaching the right people or not,” Samajwadi Party spokesman Rajendra Chaudhry said in a written statement issued here on Sunday.
He said that the Samajwadi party leaders including party president Mulayam Singh Yadav had always advocated caste census in the country. It was his persuasion in lok Sabha which forced the then Congress-led UPA Government to go for caste based census in 2011.
“Now the report is out but the NDA Government is sitting tight over it for the reasons best known to it. This Government has released religion based census but is silent on caste based figures,” he said.
The Union Government has so far released figures of 24.39 crore people of which 17.91 crore are in rural areas and 6.48 crore in the urban areas. The Government has said that it will release the census figures later on.
“If the census figures are out the state governments can increase or decrease the share of reservation for particular castes as per their representation in the society. The Union Government does not want this to happen and therefore is sitting tight on census figures, he said.