Patna, July 1: JD(U) MP and party chief spokesman Shivanand Tiwari today attacked the central government for clubbing the caste and the below poverty line (BPL) census. He demanded that the Centre conduct separate caste census for the benefit of the downtrodden.
Tiwari was speaking on the occasion at the 107th birth anniversary of Abdul Quyyum Ansari at SK Memorial Hall, which was organised by All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (AIPMM).
“The Manmohan Singh government, including the Union home minister, have made assurances in the Parliament that the census would be carried out on the caste basis by the Census Commissioner of India but now it had been clubbed with the BPL census and that is not correct. The central government is trying to fool the downtrodden and we demand that the government honours its own cabinet decision.”
He said: “The central government is retreating from its own promises. If the caste and BPL census are combined, it will only increase complications and those who are really in need will be neglected. We have been demanding for a long time that census should be based on caste. The formulation of the policies can be done conveniently if a census is done once in this manner.”
Citing the name of chief minister Nitish Kumar and JD(U) chief Sharad Yadav regarding the support to the caste census issue, Tiwari said: “Our chief minister and party chief have both supported the point. In fact, Sharad Yadav has even written a letter to Manmohan Singh. We are not going to sit quiet and will surely raise the issue in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament.”
“Without any further delay, the government should immediately cancel its impractical decision to club the caste census with the BPL survey. The move will make the entire proposed exercise, faulty. Just finding out how many people in each caste are living above and below the poverty line will not give a correct picture of the socio-economic shape of the population. We have to identify each and every caste separately and it can later become the benchmark of their development,” Tiwari said, adding that no cast census has been conducted since 1931.
Nitish was also supposed to be present at today’s programme but as he is in New Delhi, he could not attend the seminar. Instead, he sent a message regretting his inability to attend the seminar.
Despite the chief minister’s absence, the function was attended by thousands of people from all 36 castes of Pasmanda Muslim Samaj from all over the state.
The function was attended by the deputy chairman of Bihar Legislative Council, Salim Parwez and rural development minister Bhim Singh.
