Mumbai: After the resolution requesting the central government to include caste census in the general census, the state government is mulling an option to conduct such a census by the state government if the Centre rejects its demand. The Congress-led Siddaramaiah government did such a survey in 2015 in Karnataka.
Maharashtra Assembly Speaker Nana Patole moved a resolution suo moto, seeking a caste-based census to decide on the population of Other Backward Classes (OBC) and got it passed. The move has now triggered a national debate and pressured the Centre. In September 2018, then union home minister Rajnath Singh had announced to carry out an OBC census in the next census in 2021. Now, the centre government seems to have put it in cold storage.
"If the Centre does not keep its word on the OBC census, the state government may think on carrying out such a census on its own," a senior minister hinted.
"A southern state has carried out such a census on its own in the past, too," he added.
The Congress-led government by Siddaramaiah had carried out this census three years before. The “Socio-Economic and Education Survey" was conducted by the State Backward Commission at a cost of Rs147 crore and involved more than 160,000 personnel in a door-to-door campaign in more than 13.5 million households across the state. But, due to fear of political backlash, Karnataka could not dare to release the report's findings.
A strong votary of the OBC census and expert Shwaran Deore is sceptical about such a survey. "Though we are demanding an OBC census by the central government, we will be happy if the state does such a survey if the Centre denies it. But the problem is such a survey will face fund crunch as the Centre will not release funds. The Centre even may not approve its findings. Therefore, it will be better if the Centre adds columns like OBC and caste in the format of general census," Deore, also adviser and leader of OBC VJNT Sangharsh Samiti said. The samiti supported the Sena during the Assembly election as they promised to support the OBC census.
A futile exercise
Nitin Chowdhary, a prominent OBC activist, has opposed the OBC census. "It will be an exercise in futility, as there is no connection between government schemes and population. It will create new complex problems. No caste will approve the findings in case their percentage is lower than claimed by their leaders till now," Chowdhary added.
