“I had sought time from the PM to meet him with a delegation. The PM has given time of August 23. Many thanks to him,” Nitish Kumar informed.
In order to discuss the issue of caste-based census, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar will lead an all-party delegation to meet Prime Minister Modi on August 23.
Nitish Kumar, taking to Twitter on Thursday, said: “I had sought time from the PM to meet him with a delegation. The PM has given time of August 23. Many thanks to him.”
Earlier, Leader of Opposition in Bihar Assembly Tejashwi Yadav, while talking to media persons before leaving for flood-affected areas, also confirmed that the PM had given a CM-led delegation time to meet coming Monday.
“The Opposition has consistently raised the issue of caste-based census in the Bihar legislative assembly and the House passed two proposals unanimously on the same,” the RJD leader said. Tejashwi Yadav, had also written to the PM, as had Nitish Kumar, to seek time for a meeting on the issue.
Mr Kumar, earlier this week, had praised the PM for removing the confusion on state’s right to decide on other backward castes (OBCs) and said he was hopeful of getting him to discuss the matter related to caste-based census as well.
“In Bihar, then chief minister Karpoori Thakur created a separate category for extremely backward classes (EBCs). Different states have done it differently, as they were empowered to do so. There was, however, some confusion for the last few years. After the court order, the Centre decide to clear it that states continue to have the right,” the Bihar CM had said.
Any decision on a caste-based census would be taken only after discussing the matter with PM, as he would like it to be tagged with the census at least once to have a clear picture, Mr Kumar said.
Socio-economic and caste census was done in 2011, but caste data was not made public due to several discrepancies.
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