Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav on Wednesday said that he would not allow the census to be conducted in Bihar without the enumeration of castes and their population.
He also attacked the BJP and minister of state (MoS) for home affairs Nityanand Rai for denying it to the people of Bihar.
“The BJP is an extremely anti-social, anti-justice party. The legislative Assembly twice unanimously passed our proposal to have a caste census but the BJP and MoS Rai have refused it in writing. We will not allow any census in Bihar without it,” Tejashwi tweeted.
Census in the country was to be conducted in 2021, but got delayed.
Tejashwi’s sudden outburst on the caste census and the threat of not allowing population census without it comes at a time when he is wooing the general category castes in Bihar in a bid to rid the RJD of the tag of being a party only of Yadavs and Muslims. It is being seen as an attempt to reassure the backward castes that he and his party are still concerned about their interests.
The leader of Opposition spared chief minister and Janata Dal United (JDU) leader Nitish Kumar in his tweet. The state government had decided last year to conduct the caste census on its own.
Tejashwi’s tweet comes at a time when Rai is trying to project himself as a leader of the Yadavs and the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate.
Rai has been participating in photo ops to project his rustic image and also show that he is a Yadav who knows how to milk cows and grow vegetables. He was also seen collecting garbage and driving a tractor.
The BJP hit back at Tejashwi. “The leaders of the RJD have converted caste census into a Pandora’s Box, which they open to distract the people whenever they feel their own political base subsiding, become confused or have troubles in their family or party. They use it for caste-based appeasement,” BJP spokesperson and OBC (Other Backward Castes) Morcha national general secretary Nikhil Anand said.
The last caste census in the country was conducted in 1931. It had put the backward castes’ population at around 52 per cent.
