Bihar reschedules meeting on caste-based census

The all-party meeting on the caste-based census will be held on June 1. This was announced on Wednesday by Bihar parliamentary affairs minister and senior JD(U) leader Vijay Kumar Choudhary.

Sources said that the meeting was rescheduled for June 1 after BJP assured Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of support for the caste-based census issue in Bihar.

Earlier it was decided to convene a meeting on the issue on May 27.

“We have discussed the issue with political parties and it has been decided that the all-party meeting will be held on June 1 at 4 pm”, Vijay Kumar Choudhary said.

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tarkishore Prasad said that “the BJP is analyzing the issue from all angles and as far as participating in the meeting is concerned our leadership will finalize the representative”.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had earlier said that an all-party meeting will be followed by cabinet approval to hold the caste census in Bihar from its own resources.

The development assumes significance in the backdrop of reports of a growing rift between two major NDA partners — JD(U) and BJP over the issue. Political analysts also pointed out that recent meetings between Nitish Kumar and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav had also irked the BJP.

The caste-based census has been a major issue for most of the political parties in Bihar. Earlier Bihar assembly passed a resolution twice in February 2019 and again in February 2020. The resolutions were also sent to the Central government with a request to hold a census on the basis of castes.

However, demand was triggered recently after the Centre clarified that it has no plans to hold census on the basis of castes other than Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST).

Last year Tejashwi Yadav was part of the delegation led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, which met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to press the demand for a castebased census.