Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar said on Monday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was yet to give him time for a discussion on the caste census.

Nitish had written a letter to Modi on August 4 seeking a meeting on the issue.

“Our letter reached the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on August 4. A delegation of the political parties in the state wants to accompany me to meet the Prime Minister. But no reply has come till now. We want a caste census.

“It is one of our long-pending demands and it is for the benefit of the country,” Nitish said.

He said a delegation of MPs of his Janata Dal United had also sought a meeting with the Prime Minister, but they were instead asked to meet Union home minister Amit Shah.

“The delegation met the Union home minister and also submitted a memorandum on the demand for caste census,” Nitish said.

Speaking on the sidelines of his Janata Darbar, the chief minister asserted that a caste census will make clear everything, including the position of a particular caste across the country, and will help in formulating development schemes.

“It is for the Centre to take a decision on the caste census. It is not a political but a social issue,” Nitish said.

However, Nitish remained non-committal when asked whether the state government will conduct a caste census on its own if the Centre does not do so.

The state legislature had passed unanimous resolutions demanding caste census in 2019 and 2020 and forwarded them to the Centre.

The last caste census was conducted in 1931 during the British rule. It had put the backward caste population of the country at around 52 per cent.

The data later became the backbone of the quota policies brought by the central and state governments.

A socio-economic caste survey was conducted in 2011 by the UPA–II government at the Centre, but the data on castes was not published after allegations of various discrepancies.

The BJP-led central government had said in the Lok Sabha last month that there were no plans for caste-wise enumeration of the population, other than the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

Nitish also dismissed questions about a rift in the JDU, especially between the present national president Rajiv Ranjan Singh and his predecessor, Union steel minister R.C.P. Singh.

Asked about the issue, Nitish said: “All are together and united.”