Will force BJP, RSS leaders to conduct caste census: Lalu

Patna, Sep 3 (PTI) Launching a frontal attack on the BJP-led NDA government over the issue of the caste census, RJD supremo Lalu Prasad on Tuesday declared that the opposition will put pressure on the government so intensely that it will be compelled to conduct the census.

His comment came a day after the RSS said it would support caste census only if the data collected were used for the welfare of the underprivileged and not for political reasons.

“We will hold RSS, BJP by the ear, make them do sit-ups and get the caste census done. What authority do they have that they will not conduct a caste census? We will force them so much that they will have to do it. The time has come for the Dalits, backward, tribals and poor to show unity,” Lalu Prasad posted on X in Hindi.

He wrote that after he returned to Patna after a routine check-up in Singapore. Prasad’s kidney transplant operation was successfully done in Singapore in December 2022.

The RJD organised a statewide one-day sit-in on Sunday, September 1, calling for a nationwide caste census and the inclusion of a quota hike by the Bihar government in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution.

Addressing party workers in Patna, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav had alleged that the NDA government at the Centre and in the state are ‘against reservation for the deprived section of the society’ and against caste census.

Yadav had charged the BJP-led central government with misleading the Parliament and people over the inclusion of hiked quota for deprived castes in Bihar in the 9th schedule of the Constitution.