New Delhi: BJP’s ally JD(U) on Monday raise the issue of caste census in the Lok Sabha and reiterated its demand for caste-wise enumeration of the population in the next general census.
Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Janata Dal(United) leader Kaushalendra Kumar said the caste-wise census will help in better implementation of the reservation policy and also provide “a scientific basis” for it.
“The Supreme Court also wants that there should be a scientific basis for (providing) reservation (to members of scheduled castes, other backward classes and the scheduled tribes). The caste census figures will meet the demand of the SC as well,” he said.
The JD(U) MP noted that a caste-based census was conducted during the erstwhile United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime in 2010-11 but its complete details were never made public.
“The government is not making it public completely. Some paras were published but the castes’ data was held back,” Kumar said.
After “much hue and cry”, the JD(U) leader said, it was handed over to the Niti Aayog in 2014 for analysis and later, an expert committee was constituted to look into it.
“Now, it is being said the data is erroneous,” he said.
Kumar said the caste-based enumeration of population will make it easy to see if any of the categories are “being ignored” in the reservation system.
“Due to this, our leader and (Bihar) Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has been demanding for a caste-based census,” he said.
“It is my request that it should be reconsidered and enumeration of caste-wise population be conducted in the next general census. Bring a provision for the caste-based enumeration at the earliest,” he added.