Caste-based census: Tejashwi writes to non-BJP leaders to rally support

The letter has also been marked to other CMs like Uddhav Thackeray, MK Stalin, Naveen Patnaik, K Chandrasekhar Rao and Jaganmohan Reddy.

Days after the Centre’s affidavit in the Supreme Court virtually ruling out a caste-based census, Bihar’s leader of opposition in the assembly, Tejashwi Yadav, has written to 33 non-BJP leaders of the country in a bid to rally support for a caste-wise enumeration in the Census 2021.

On Friday, Tejashwi Yadav had served a three-day ultimatum to Bihar CM Nitish Kumar to reveal his plan after which the RJD would decide its future course of action. (PTI PHOTO.)

The two-page letter that Yadav tweeted on Saturday says, “The ruling party does not have a single rational reason against not conducting the caste census.” The RJD leader said in his tweet that the letter has been sent to top leaders of the country, including Sonia Gandhi, Sharad Pawar, Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel, Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi and even to Bihar CM Nitish Kumar.

“It bears repeating for a brazenly callous government that the caste system, which Dr B R Ambedkar referred to as a system of graded inequality, has been a great source of disadvantage for a significantly large section of population. Although caste plays such a discriminatory role in our socio-economic life and confines privileges into only a few hands, no reliable and wide-ranging data is available for more than fifty per cent of our population,” he has written in his letter.

The RJD leader urged the non-BJP leaders that as the decadal census has been delayed due to the pandemic, “we must urge the Union government to include within the delayed 2021 census the caste census as well, before the exercise begins”.

“The census of India must deliberate upon the flaws and gaps in the way it conducted the first Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) in 2011 with help from experts. This will ensure that the error ridden process which rendered the data useless according to the Census of India itself can be corrected. This would also prevent a colossal waste and a fraud on the most disadvantaged people of our country from occurring again,” he said.

The letter has also been marked to other CMs like Uddhav Thackeray, MK Stalin, Naveen Patnaik, K Chandrasekhar Rao and Jaganmohan Reddy.

On Friday, Yadav had served a three-day ultimatum to Bihar CM Nitish Kumar to reveal his plan after which the RJD would decide its future course of action.