Tejashwi gives Nitish 48-72 hours to clear stand on caste census

Tejashwi Prasad Yadav on Tuesday asked chief minister Nitish Kumar to clarify his stand within next 48 to 72 hours on the issue of holding a statewide caste census and said the opposition would no longer tolerate delaying tactics of his government on the matter.

Bihar‘s leader of the opposition Tejashwi Prasad Yadav on Tuesday asked chief minister Nitish Kumar to clarify his stand within next 48 to 72 hours on the issue of holding a statewide caste census and said the opposition would no longer tolerate delaying tactics of his government on the matter.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav addresses a press conference in Patna on Tuesday. (Santosh Kumar/HT Photo)

Last year, the union government has ruled out a caste-wise enumeration in the census exercise.

Yadav said the chief minister was well within his powers to order a statewide caste census and wondered what was Kumar’s compulsion that he was adopting dilly-dallying tactics on the matter despite having promised that an all-party meeting would be called to discuss the issue in December last year.

“I am giving the chief minister 48 to 72 hours to clear his stand on whether he wants to conduct a caste census in Bihar or not. I will seek time from the chief minister officially and meet him whenever he calls me up in next three days. If he does not call me or clear his stand on caste census proposal in Bihar, we will decide on our next course of action. We will no longer tolerate dilly-dallying,” Yadav said at a press conference at his party RJD office in Patna after conclusion of a two-day brainstorming session with senior leaders on burning issues in the state.

He said the chief minister, whose party Janata Dal-United was a key constituent of the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre, could well convince the central government to hold the caste census along with the national census as it would only require an additional column in the census survey sheet to be used by enumerators.

Yadav said both the houses of the state legislature had passed unanimous resolutions in favour of caste census twice. “ If a caste census is not held, the resolutions passed by the state legislature have no meaning or importance. Many states have done caste census at their own cost and Bihar can do the same,” the former deputy chief minister said.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader recalled how the chief minister had joined him in the delegation to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year to press for a caste census and had promised that Bihar would hold a caste census on its own.

On Monday, Yadav had said the opposition would soon a start a padyatra (foot march) from Patna to New Delhi to press for a caste census.

“So many months have passed but there is no word from the CM on the caste survey. Now, either he should clarify his stand or else admit that he is not capable of conducting a survey or taking any decision The way things are happening , it looks the Bihar government is running from Nagpur,” Yadav said, in an apparent swipe at CM Kumar that he was cowing down to pressure from BJP and its ideological mentor RSS, which is headquartered at Nagpur.

The RJD leader also took attacked BJP, a key constituent of the ruling NDA in Bihar, saying its pre-poll promise of providing 19 lakh jobs in the state had failed to materialise even as its legislators and ministers were making provocative speeches and spreading communalism. “Nobody is talking to of real issues like inflation, poverty unemployment and migration. Instead, BJP MLAs and ministers are making all sorts of statements to spread communalism and divide the society while the CM does not even care to rebuke them,” he said.

On the “leak” of question papers of examination for Bihar’s civil services, the opposition leader said government was totally at fault and it should give compensation to students and also relax age limit criteria so aspirants who might be crossing the age limit in the next few months for taking the competitive test could take further attempts to qualify for a government job.