Union Home Minister Amit Shah said Tuesday that the Census, which has been pending since 2021, will start “very soon”, and that any decision on conducting a caste census will be “made public” when the Census is announced. Asked whether the government will conduct a caste census, which is a key demand of the Opposition, Shah did not rule out the possibility. “When the Census is announced, all these things will be made public,” he said. He was speaking at a press conference marking 100 days of the third term of the NDA government, during which projects worth Rs 15 lakh crore were launched. Responding to a question on the recent violence in Manipur and the government’s plan to address it, Shah said the fencing of the India-Myanmar border, which he described as the “origin” of the problems there, had begun. He said 30-km fencing had been completed in the 100 days and that the government had approved the budget for fencing along the 1,500-km-long border. The government, he said, had suspended the free-movement regime with Myanmar. “…the CRPF has been launched successfully in strategic locations… There were many security lapses on the border which have been corrected. Recently, there were violent incidents on three days. Apart from that, there was no major incident in the past three months. I have hope that we will be able to get control of it. There can be no solution until there is dialogue between the two groups. We are in dialogue with Kuki groups and Meitei groups. We have made a roadmap for making all kinds of efforts,” he said. He did not, however, answer questions on if he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi were planning to visit Manipur. Asked about opposition to the Waqf Amendment Bill, he said he did not wish to, nor could he, comment on the matter since the Bill had been referred to a Parliamentary committee. He said it was for the committee to see how to address the genuine complaints from those in support and those in opposition to it. Earlier, while listing out the work done in the past 100 days, Shah said the government was “committed” towards having the Bill, which covers “management, protection and misuse” of Waqf properties, passed by Parliament in the coming days. He reiterated the BJP’s commitment towards simultaneous elections, which has been a manifesto promise of the party in the last three Lok Sabha elections. “One Nation, One Election will be implemented in the term of this government,” he said. Last year, the government had appointed a high-level committee chaired by former President Ram Nath Kovind to suggest ways to hold simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha, state Assemblies and municipalities. The committee submitted its report to President Droupadi Murmu in March, recommending Constitutional amendments. Shah, accompanied by Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Railways, Information & Broadcasting, Electronics & Information Technology, released a booklet on the achievements of the government in the first 100 days. According to the booklet, out of the total projects of Rs 15 lakh crore launched in the 100 days, infrastructure projects accounted for Rs 3 lakh crore, including the Vadhavan Mega Port in Maharashtra. A new National Cooperative Policy for the cooperatives sector had also been drafted and was being finalised, it said. Shah started off the press conference by wishing the Prime Minister on his birthday, which was on Tuesday. Speaking on the 10 years of the Modi government, he said it was for the first time that the country had a foreign policy with a “spine”.
