New Delhi: An all-party delegation from Jharkhand led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in the national capital on Sunday and demanded that a caste-based census be conducted in the nation.
“All of us met Home Minister Amit Shah and urged him to ensure that a caste-based census is conducted,” Soren said.
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“We apprised him of our state’s sentiments in support of the caste census,” he told reporters after the meeting, PTI reported.
The delegation included Jharkhand Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief and Rajya Sabha member Deepak Prakash, Congress’ Jharkhand unit president Rajesh Thakur, Congress’ legislature party leader Alamgir Alam, All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU) president and former Jharkhand deputy chief minister Sudesh Mahato and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Satyanand Bhoka besides the representatives of all other parties from the state.
Prakash, however, evaded a direct reply to a poser as to whether the BJP supports caste-census.
“The BJP was also part of this all-party delegation. We all know that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government is a well-wisher of the people belonging to backward classes,” he said.
Asserting the “BJP and its government stand by the people belonging to backward classes”, Prakash said Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government “gave constitutional status to the OBC Commission and also provided for 27 percent quota to OBCs in medical and dental colleges”.
The Jharkhand BJP chief added that his party is consistently working for the welfare of the OBCs.
The Congress’ state president said Shah gave the delegation a patient hearing and assured to “look into the matter”.
The visit came close on the heels of the Centre effectively ruling out a caste census.
The Central government has told the Supreme Court that such an exercise “would not be feasible”, adding that “exclusion of information regarding any other caste” apart from SCs and STs “from the purview of census is a conscious policy decision”.
Soren handed over to the Home Minister a letter addressed to Prime Minister Modi demanding that a caste-based demographic survey be carried out during the proposed 2021 census.
“Due to lack of caste data in census surveys conducted since Independence, people from backward classes are facing difficulties in getting special benefits,” stated the letter was signed by all members of the delegation.
Underlining it is unfair for the people belonging to the backward and extremely backward classes and they are not able to make the expected progress, the letter said: “In the proposed census in 2021, the Union government has informed Parliament through a written record that it will not conduct caste census, which is very unfortunate.”
“If caste census is not conducted now, then neither educational, nor social, political or economic conditions of the backward/extremely backward castes will be properly assessed. This will hamper the formulation of a right policy for their betterment,” the letter added.
The all-party delegation in the letter said that a caste-based census would help remove disparities in the society.
“In India, people belonging to SC, ST and Backward Classes have faced the brunt of economic and social backwardness for centuries. After Independence, different classes have developed at varied pace as a result of which the gap between rich and poor has widened,” the letter said.
“In such a situation, caste-based data is needed to remove these disparities. By conducting the caste-based census, there will be many benefits in the policy-making of the country,” the letter added.