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Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav on Thursday said the Bharatiya Janata Party is afraid of holding a caste census.
"A caste-based census can only be done by the central government as per the Constitution of India.What we did in Bihar was a caste-based survey. INDIA alliance has been demanding continuously that a caste-based census should happen. The BJP is afraid of a caste-based census. We are in full support of a caste-based census," Yadav said. Earlier, the Bihar government released caste survey data with the figures that may have ramifications for the Lok Sabha polls next year, showing that Other Backward Caste (OBC) and Extremely Backward Class (EBC) together account for 63 per cent of the state's population. According to the data, Scheduled Castes make up 19.65 per cent and the Scheduled Tribes 1.68 per cent of the population of Bihar. The data also said that the Hindus comprise 81.99 per cent of the population, Muslims 17.7 per cent, Christians 0.05 per cent, Sikhs 0.01 per cent, Buddhists 0.08 per cent and other religions 0.12 per cent. The data said that Yadavs, the OBC group to which Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav belongs, is the largest and accounts for 14.27 per cent of the state's population. Kushwaha and Kurmi communities form 4.27 per cent and 2.87 per cent of the population, the caste survey said. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar belongs to the Kurmi community in the state. The total population of Bihar is more than 13 crore. Several leaders of the INDIA bloc welcomed the Bihar government's move to conduct the caste survey while several BJP leaders alleged that the survey was done to create "tension" in the state. Bihar Leader of Opposition Vijay Kumar Sinha earlier hit out at the Bihar government over the caste-based survey stating that it was conducted to create "tension" in the state. Meanwhile, the chorus for nationwide caste-based data has grown. The findings from Bihar, one of the country's politically significant states, have the potential to upend the country's politics, with demands being made for a similar nationwide census. (ANI)
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