Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav took to Twitter to demand a caste-based census. He said that it is needed for qualitative upliftment in the lives of people of backward castes.
The veteran politician asked if the census can keep the count of various animals and birds, why people can't be documented on the basis of their castes. "If the purpose of the Census is the upliftment of the people, then how it is wrong to count thousands of castes," reported ANI.
The conversation around caste-based census was restarted in the Monsoon session of the Parliament when the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Seventh Amendment) Bill, 2021, was discussed. Several Opposition parties and some BJP allies spoke in favour of the caste-based census.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs had declared in March that the government has no proposal to release the caste data. The ministry clarified that the raw caste data has been provided to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MoSJE) for the classification and categorization of the data, reported ANI.
"The Office of the Registrar General, India had provided logistics and technical support in conducting the SECC-2011. Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 was conducted by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) and the then Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (HUPA) in rural and urban areas respectively," said the ministry.