Nishad Party firm on caste survey, demands riverine community be included in SC
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Lucknow: Nishad Party chief and Uttar Pradesh Fisheries Minister Sanjay Nishad on Wednesday reiterated his party’s demand for a caste survey in the state.
“We are in favour of a caste survey or census in UP as per the census manual of 1961 so that all castes are aware of their numerical strength. We also demand that riverine community of fishermen and boatmen be included in Scheduled Castes and be counted as such,” the minister said.
Blaming the previous Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) governments for denying what was due to the riverine community, he said that they had betrayed the society.
The minister also said that he hoped that his party’s ally and “elder brother” Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would ensure that his party got “respectable number of seats” as part of the seat-sharing agreement in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
He added that his party would contest the forthcoming LS polls on its own symbol.
Since the party was founded in 2016, the Nishad party chief’s son Pravin Nishad has twice been a Lok Sabha MP, but on another party’s symbol – once on SP symbol in the 2018 Lok Sabha bypoll from Gorakhpur and on BJP’s symbol from Sant Kabir Nagar in 2019.
Nishad’s other son Sarvan also became a lawmaker from Chauri Chaura assembly seat on the BJP symbol in 2022 UP polls. Of the 11 Nishad party candidates who contested and won the 2022 UP polls, five did so on the BJP symbol.
With inputs from IANS