Patna: A day after an all-party meeting held in Patna for conducting caste-based Census, former Deputy Chief Minister of Bihar, Sushil Kumar Modi, on Thursday slammed Tejashwi Yadav and his party RJD for not taking credit for it.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had on Wednesday announced implementing the long-pending demand for caste-based Census in the state.
The decision was taken after an all-party meeting in which the leaders of all the nine political parties represented in the Assembly were present.
Tejashwi Yadav claimed on Wednesday that it is a victory of Lalu (Prasad) ji and RJD, who were advocating caste-based Census for the last several years.
Now it is a reality after the Bihar government decided to conduct caste-based Census, he said.
“RJD had the history of conducting panchayat and urban local body elections by giving reservation to backward class people. It was part of the UPA government at the Centre between 2004 and 2014… So why didn’t it advocate conducting caste-based Census in the country? Even during the socio-economic Census of 2011, why didn’t it advocate adding one more column to it, Sushil Modi asked.
“The BJP was not against caste-based Census. Had it been the case, it would have been impossible for the UPA to conduct the Census in 2011,” he said.
“In Bihar, proposal for caste-based Census was passed twice in the legislative Assembly and the Council… So why wasn’t it started when the RJD was in power? In Maharashtra and Odhisha, caste-based census was passed successfully when the BJP was an important political party in the respective Assemblies,” Sushil Modi said.
“I believe Tejashwi Yadav and the RJD are unnecessarily taking credit for it,” he added.
(IANS)
