New Delhi: An all-party delegation led by Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Sunday met Union Home Minister Amit Shah in the national capital and demanded a caste-based census in the country.
“We all met Home Minister Amit Shah and urged him to ensure caste-based census,” Soren said.
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“We conveyed to him the sentiments of our state in support of the caste census,” he told reporters after the meeting.
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, refrained from giving a direct answer to the question whether the BJP supports the caste-census.
“BJP was also part of this all-party delegation. We all know that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government are well-wisher of the backward class people.
Emphasizing on the “stance of the BJP and its government by the backward classes”, Prakash said the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government “gave constitutional status to the OBC Commission and 27 per cent quota to OBCs in medical and dental colleges”. did”.
The Jharkhand BJP chief said that his party is continuously working for the welfare of OBCs.
The Congress state president said Shah listened to the delegation patiently and assured to “look into the matter”.
The visit came close on the heels of the Center effectively rejecting the caste census.
The central government has told the Supreme Court that such an exercise “would not be practical”, saying it was a conscious policy decision to “exclude information on any caste other than SCs and STs from the purview of the census”. .
Soren handed over a letter addressed to Prime Minister Modi to the Home Minister demanding that a caste-based demographic survey be conducted during the proposed 2021 Census.
The letter, signed by all the members of the delegation, said, “Due to the paucity of caste data in the census surveys conducted since independence, the backward class people are facing difficulties in getting special benefits.”
Underlining that this is unfair to 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 Central Government through a written record has been made by the Parliament. He has been informed that he will not conduct the caste census, which is very unfortunate.
“If the caste census is not done now, then neither the educational, nor the social, political or economic status of the backward/extremely backward castes can be accurately assessed. This will hinder the formulation of a right policy for their betterment,” the letter said.
In the letter, the all-party delegation said that the caste-based census would help in removing inequalities in the society.
“In India, people belonging to SC, ST and backward classes have suffered the brunt of economic and social backwardness for centuries. After independence, different sections have developed at different speeds resulting in widening of the gap between rich and poor,” the letter said.
In such a situation, caste based data is needed to remove these inequalities. Conducting caste based census will have many benefits in policy making of the country.
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