After caste census, population control faultline erupts between Nitish, BJP

Following Bihar BJP minister Neeraj Singh Bablu’s recent remark that there was “an urgent need of population control policy besides just having caste census”, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar disapproved of his idea, while adding that everyone was entitled to their own opinion.

“It (population control policy) does not work. Take the example of China that had a one-child norm and then two-child norm, and now having a discussion on three children. I have visited China and experienced how people (parents) are not getting enough family members to take care of them,” Nitish said.

Union minister and BJP MP from Begusarai, Giriraj Singh, also rose to make a pitch for a population control policy.

Nitish, who had also disapproved of his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath’s idea of two-child norm, said: “Population control can be achieved only through awareness and education. Thanks to our focus on education of girls, the fertility rate (in Bihar) has come down from 4.3 per cent (in 2005) to 3 per cent now. We are now targeting to bring it down to 2 per cent.”

The BJP and the JD(U) have differed on various important policy matters, including National Register of Citizens (NRC), National Population Register (NPR), national caste census (though the BJP’s Bihar unit supported it, the party-led central government remains opposed to it) and the demand for a special category status for Bihar.

Both parties have been at loggerheads over various policy or political matters, especially during Nitish’s current chief ministerial term in which the JD(U) is a junior partner with 45 seats behind the BJP’s 77 seats in the 243-seat Bihar Assembly.

While Nitish maintains that Bihar, being a poor state, must be given a special category status for industrial growth, the Centre says Bihar is not a hilly state and does not fulfil the criteria of a special category.

In a bid to check the saffron party, which has kept it under pressure, the JD(U) has sought to highlight the “contradiction” between the BJP’s state and central units on the caste census issue.

Soon after the Nitish Cabinet cleared the proposal for holding the caste census in Bihar following a unanimous all-party resolution, the BJP sought to put riders by saying Rohingya refugees and illegal Bangladeshi migrants must not be counted in the census. Nitish chose not to react, just saying that the caste census would be done in a transparent manner taking concerns of all sections into account.

The alliance partners have now struck a discordant note over the population control issue. “Population is more a problem of Bihar than of India. While India has achieved 2.1 per cent fertility rate, Bihar is still struggling at 3 per cent fertility rate. Population of India is 396 persons per sq km. Bihar has 1,209 persons per sq km. Are we still waiting for God’s help?” state BJP president Dr Sanjay Jaiswal told The Indian Express.