Bihar should hold its own caste census, says Tejashwi; Lalu too weighs in

PATNA Bihar’s leader of opposition, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), on Thursday said chief minister Nitish Kumar should lead a delegation of the state Assembly to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to press for enumeration of caste groups or else conduct a caste count on its own, as was done by the Karnantaka government earlier

PATNA

Patna, India – July 29, 2021: RJD MLAs Tejashwi Yadav and Tej Pratap Yadav arrive to attend the Monsoon Session at Bihar Assembly in Patna, Bihar, India on Thursday July 29, 2021. (Photo by Santosh Kumar /Hindustan Times)

Bihar’s leader of opposition, Tejashwi Prasad Yadav of the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), on Thursday said chief minister Nitish Kumar should lead a delegation of the state Assembly to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi to press for enumeration of caste groups or else conduct a caste count on its own, as was done by the Karnantaka government earlier.

The last caste census in India was conducted in 1931.

In New Delhi, RJD chief Lalu Prasad, in his first media interaction after being granted bail in fodder scam cases in April this year, also pushed for caste census and said he and his party had long struggled for this and would continue to do so.

The ailing RJD chief, who is recuperating at the residence of his eldest daughter and MP Misa Bharti, was talking to reporters after taking his first shot of Covid-19 vaccine on Thursday. He said he would return to Patna in next one or two months.

In Patna, Tejashwi Yadav said he would meet the chief minister to push for a caste census. “The CM himself is in favour caste census. The Bihar state Assembly had passed resolutions twice in the past for caste census,” he told reporters outside the state Assembly.

Yadav said if the CM does not lead a delegation to meet the Prime Minister, he should order a caste census in Bihar as done by Karnataka in 2018 by the then government led by chief minister Siddaramaiah.

The demand for caste census is once again in the centre stage of Bihar politics following the Bhartiya Janata Party-led union government’s recent announcement in Parliament that there will be no enumeration of people belonging to various castes other than scheduled caste and scheduled tribes during the census 2021. Union minister of state for home Nityanand Rai had made the announcement on July 20.

In Bihar, both the ruling Janata Dal (United), an ally of BJP, and Opposition RJD have thrived on the social justice plank.