The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Wednesday passed a unanimous resolution urging the Centre to take up caste-based census soon.

The resolution piloted by Chief Minister M K Stalin said the central government should immediately commence the census work, which is due from 2021, along with caste-based population census this time.

"This House considers that caste-based population census is essential to formulate policies in order to ensure equal rights and equal opportunities in education, economy and employment to every citizen of India," the resolution stated.

The legislators belonging to various political parties including the BJP supported the resolution which was adopted by the House in the absence of the principal Opposition AIADMK members who were suspended from the Assembly for disrupting the proceedings.

Speaker M Appavu said the resolution was adopted unanimously.

Earlier moving the resolution, Stalin said only the union government was empowered to conduct the population census as per section 3 of the Census Act, 1948.

Though the Collection of Statistics Act, 2008, facilitated state governments to collect data about the socio-economic status of the people, under part A of Section 3 of the Act, state governments cannot collect data on communities listed under the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, the Chief Minister said.

“It is not possible to collect census data under the Collection of Statistics Act. The only option is the conduct of Population Census by the Union Government. That’s why we insist that the caste census should be conducted by the Centre,” he added.

Speaking on the resolution, PMK MLA R Arul termed the move as 'unnecessary' as the state government has powers to conduct caste census. His party favoured caste-wise census, he added.

Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Edappadi K Palaniswami claimed that his government had initiated the process in 2020 but could not complete the task due to change of regime.

“The AIADMK government (under him) issued a government order on December 20, 2020, for caste-based census and commenced the work. We even constituted a commission under a retired judge,” the former Chief Minister told reporters outside the Assembly.

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