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Union Home Minister Amit Shah said Friday that the BJP was never opposed to the idea of caste census but it does not do “politics of votes” on the issue. He said such “decisions have to be taken after careful thought” and at an “appropriate time”.
Speaking to the press at the launch of the BJP manifesto for the Chhattisgarh elections in Raipur, Shah, responding to a query on caste census, said, “We are a national political party and we don’t do politics of votes on this issue. We will take an appropriate decision after consulting everyone and tell (you) about it. But contesting polls on its basis is not correct. The BJP has never opposed this (caste census), but decisions have to be taken after careful thought. We will let you know at the appropriate time.”
The statement assumes significance in the backdrop of the demand from Opposition parties for a nationwide caste census. The Congress and regional parties such as the JD(U) and RJD have been accusing the BJP of dragging its feet on the issue.
In the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the Opposition is likely to make caste census a key election issue.
On Thursday, the BJP leadership held a meeting to discuss the “advantages and disadvantages” of the party’s current position on not going for a caste count and decided to form a committee to frame OBC outreach programmes. BJP Chief Ministers, Deputy Chief Ministers, state unit presidents and legislature party leaders from different states attended the meeting at the party headquarters in New Delhi.
During the recent passage of the Women’s Reservation Bill in Parliament, when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi raised the issue of there being only three OBC secretaries in the government, Amit Shah chose to emphasise how his party had given adequate representation to OBCs.
“This government run by the BJP has 85 OBC MPs… 29% of the total number of party MPs. Of the party’s 1318 legislators across India, 365, who constitute 27 %, are OBC MLAs. Around 40% of the 163 BJP MLCs are OBCs… Your party never made an OBC the Prime Minister. The BJP has made an OBC the Prime Minister,” Shah said.
While the BJP has never batted for caste census, it has also opposed it only on technical grounds.
In August, in a short affidavit filed in the Bihar caste survey matter, the Centre said the Census Act “empowers only the Central Government to conduct Census under section 3 of the…Act”.
While opposing the Bihar caste survey, it was careful to mention that it was filing the affidavit “only with a view to place the Constitutional and legal position for consideration” of the court.
The government said it was “committed to take all affirmative actions for upliftment of SCs/STs/SEBCs and OBCs in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and applicable law”.
Following the release of the caste survey data by the Bihar government last month, BJP leader Sushil Modi told The Indian Express that it was actually the BJP’s “baby” and had been approved when the party was part of the Nitish Kumar government.
In September, 2021, however, the Centre had opposed the idea of caste census in the Supreme Court more vociferously.
Ruling out a caste census in 2021, the Centre had told the Supreme Court that such an exercise “would not be feasible” and that “exclusion of information regarding any other caste”, apart from SCs and STs, “from the purview of census is a conscious policy decision”.
This was the key submission of the Ministry of Social Justice in an affidavit filed in the top court in response to a plea by the Maharashtra government seeking a direction to the Census Department to collect information on Backward Class of Citizens (BCC) in the 2021 enumeration.
The Centre told the court that “a caste-wise enumeration in the Census has been given up as a matter of policy from 1951 onwards and thus castes other than SCs and STs have not been enumerated in any of the Census since 1951 till today”.
It had then even underlined that while the preparation for the first Census after independence in 1951 was underway, “the Government of India had decided on the policy of official discouragement of caste”.
On July 20, 2021, in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai had said: “The Government of India has decided as a matter of policy not to enumerate caste-wise populations other than SCs and STs in the census.”
The government had then flagged difficulties such as Central and state lists having different castes as OBCs in their respective lists. It also said that “since Castes/ SEBCs/ BCs/ OBCs have become an integral part of politics, motivated returns through organised and surreptitious means cannot be ruled out” and that “such motivated returns can seriously influence the Census results and even put the Census process in jeopardy”.
