Centre should reconsider its caste census decision: Bihar CM Nitish Kumar

PATNA: Reiterating his demand for a countrywide caste census, CM Nitish Kumar on Sunday said it is the need of the hour and the Centre should reconsider its decision against it. “Caste census is in the interest of the country,” he said.
The Centre, in an affidavit in the Supreme Court recently, virtually ruled out holding a caste census. Nitish said the matter in the apex court was was not directly related to the caste census.“It is related to the socio-economic caste census-2011,” he pointed out.
Talking to reporters after participating in a review meeting on left wing extremism with Union home minister Amit Shah at Delhi, Nitish said caste census is pro-development and it will help policymakers frame targeted welfare policies for the backward castes. The CM said a delegation of 10 political parties from Bihar had met PM Narendra Modi and explained everything to him in favour of the caste census.
To a query whether he would hold a caste census in Bihar, Nitish said he would convene an all-party meeting in the state to decide the future course of action on the issue. “The state legislature has already passed a resolution in favour of holding a nationwide caste census,” he said.
Asked whether JD(U) would continue in the government if the Centre refused to hold a caste census, Nitish said, “It is not proper time to speak on it.”
When his attention was drawn to Jharkhand CM Hemant Soren’s meeting with home minister Shah on the issue in the evening, Nitish said, “This is the demand of all the states.”
When asked whether he would tour the country and unite all parties on the issue, the Bihar CM said, “It is a different subject.”
Rejecting the BJP leaders’ arguments that a caste census would not be feasible because the country has thousands of castes and their sub-castes, Nitish said it could be done by properly training the enumerators about different aspects of castes and sub-castes.
“During the house-to-house enumeration, if someone tells his sub-caste, the trained enumerators will include him with his actual caste by verifying from his neighbours. The caste census can be accurately done by imparting proper training to all the personnel involved in the exercise,” Nitish said and added: “It’s not a proper argument that caste census is not possible because the findings of the socio-economic caste census-2011 was not accurate.”
Earlier, on August 23, an 11-member delegation from Bihar led by Nitish had called on PM Modi and demanded caste census across the country along with the census-2021. The issue was revived in July this year after the Union government informed the Lok Sabha that it would not enumerate the population on caste basis, except the SCs and STs.