Bhubaneswar: A day after the Centre approved the inclusion of caste enumeration in the next national census, a ‘credit war’ erupted between the Congress and Biju Janata Dal (BJD) in Odisha on Thursday.
Both the opposition parties sought to take credit for the decision of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs (CCPA) on Wednesday to include caste survey in the next census.
While BJD leaders claimed that the move became possible due to the party’s demand for caste census over the last several years, state Congress stated that the BJP-led Central government finally accepted its arguments while approving the proposal.
Senior BJD leader and former Minister Arun Kumar Sahoo told reporters that party president Naveen Patnaik had first envisioned the idea of conducting a caste enumeration in the country.
Stating that BJD had first raised the demands for the caste census in Parliament in 2010, he said the Centre was finally forced to go for caste enumeration only because of the pressure mounted on them.
BJD has also been seeking steps to increase the reservation limit beyond the existing 50 percent for Other Backward Classes (OBC), particularly in educational institutions. Proportional representation in reservation based on population as well as demographics is also among the suggestions being debated by the party.
Sahoo said the Centre has made the announcement, but the modalities will come at a subsequent time, and then BJD will review those. BJD wants that socio-economic and educational backwardness should be taken into account when deciding on reservation, he said.
“The amount of socio-economic and educational privileges accorded to the SC, ST, and OBC categories of people and how much of the population has been deprived should clearly be considered by the government for survey,” the BJD leader said.
Expressing similar views, Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Bhakta Charan Das criticised the Central government for taking over a decade to reach this decision. “Rahul Gandhi has been vocal in his advocacy for such a census. Initially, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had dismissed Rahul Gandhi’s arguments, but recent changes in stance suggest a shift in their perspective,” he said.
Stating that the decision should not remain a mere announcement, Das said it must be properly implemented. In Odisha, the OBC population is around 54 percent, but the reservation given to them for recruitment is only 11.27 percent, the former Union Minister said.
The PCC chief also express concern over reservation for OBC in the education sector, stating that it is ‘zero’.
