Rudy’s all-out attack on caste census at odds with BJP’s tightrope walk

By Santosh Kumar PathakNew Delhi, Feb 12 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been stuck in a maelstrom regarding the caste based census.

The opposition parties have been attacking the BJP by citing different statements from its leaders, in attempts to prove that the saffron party is against the caste census.

Former Union Minister and BJP Lok Sabha MP from Bihars Saran, Rajiv Pratap Rudy while targeting the Nitish Kumar-led government in the Lok Sabha on February 10, said that Bihars Grand Alliance government had been trying to divide the state into castes by the caste based census.He alleged that it had been creating ethnic frenzy, due to which quarrels had been taking place in many villages.

In a conversation with IANS, Rudy said that the BJP had supported the caste census in Bihar, but had laid certain conditions for it such as including the caste and profession of the four crore people who had left Bihar due to the wrong policies of the government.Rudy had added that the Bihar government had reached bankruptcy and was conducting the caste census in an attempt to stick to power.

He stressed that the time had come for people to move on from the politics of caste and numbers.In a conversation with IANS, BJP OBC Morcha national president and Rajya Sabha MP Dr K.Laxman denied the Oppositions allegations of the saffron party being against the caste census and said that since the census would take place for the first time after 1931, the BJP wants the states to take the initiative keeping in view the legal, technical and administrative concerns that may come up.Accusing former Finance minister P.Chidambaram and the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government of dividing the country into lakhs of castes and spending funds wrongly, Laxman said the BJP is not against the caste census but is against the way the UPA government had spent Rs 6,000 crore through private NGOs under this pretext.Laxman alleged that no one benefitted from it and it was not even published by the UPA government.

He said that the states were given the right by the Parliament to decide upon the castes to include in their OBC list.Along with this, he said that many castes of the OBC still had not gained any benefits from reservation and the BJP believed in every member of the community benefitting from reservations.

Significantly, the BJP supported the move when the Nitish Kumar-led government in Bihar approved the caste census in 2022.On the lines of Bihar, Akhilesh Yadav has also been talking about a caste based census in Uttar Pradesh.

However, many BJP leaders of Bihar have been raising questions on why sub-castes are not being included in the caste based census even without openly opposing the same.Recently, UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya while addressing journalists had claimed that the BJP was not against the caste census and described Akhilesh Yadavs campaign as anti-Modi.

The saffron party, ever since its inception, has raised the flag of Hindutva and has made it clear that it does not want to indulge in caste based politics.Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the saffron party is now attempting to connect with the minority communities, including Muslims and has raised the slogan, Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas.

In such a situation, the BJP is dreading that opposition parties like the Samajwadi Party (SP), Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Janata Dal-United (JD-U) might defeat the party by restoring the era of Mandal-Kamandal politics in the country on the pretext of caste census.Perhaps this is the reason why the saffron party has been treading lightly around the issue.

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