Ommitted to holding aste census: BJP MP
The Bharatiya Janparty’s member of Parliat from Maharashtra, Pritam de, also the daughter of one e party’s most prominent r Backward Class(obc) ers, the late Gopinath de, has reiterated the ruling y’s commitment to conduct te census, as articulated by ather on the floor of Parliat in March, 2011. unde said that the BJP was he kind of party that said hing in opposition and then ged its position in governt. Munde’s words come at a when the demand for a census has grown louder. e demand is supported by e members of the BJP itself, y of its allies, including the ta Dal United, and the All a Anna Dravida Munnetra agam, friendly parties such e Biju Janata Dal and the Congress, and almost the e Opposition. The governt itself has not explicitly n a stand on the issue, give nsitivity and the possibility it could trigger a backlash, from OBCS that lose out on fits if the reservation foris redefined following the us, and from upper castes fear the survey could be a ursor to breaching the 50% for reservations. y father was deputy leader pposition when he spoke t it. It does not matter if you n the opposition or in the g party as long as you feel cause. I don’t think we are sort of party who come into er and then change their da or manifesto’’ she said. hen you already have reservation depending on caste system, then you need to know the total number of people belonging to a particular community. We do believe it should be done else how are we going to decide how much to reserve. Who decides OBCS are 27%?’’
To be sure, the 27% number was arrived despite the Mandal commission estimating the OBC share of the population at 52% to ensure reservations did not breach the 50% ceiling mandated by the Supreme Court in the Indra Sawhney case. People belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes get 22.5% reservation for jobs and admission to educational institutions.
In 2011, Gopinath Munde made a 20 minute speech in parliament where he put forth his party’s position on why an OBC census is required. The 2011 Census was accompanied by a caste census but its findings were never made public. The government claimed this was on account of inaccuracies in data gathering but it is likely political compulsions stayed its hand.
”I have never come across anybody who is opposing this concept.in the general census, in forms they ask you if you belong to SC or ST community, but no columns for OBC. If SC/ST need to be counted, then OBC should also be counted,’’ Munde said.