News Desk
Union home minister Amit Shah on Sunday hit out at the Nitish Kumar-led Bihar government, accusing it of “deliberately” showing an inflated population of Muslims and Yadavs in the state’s caste survey. He also accused the ‘Mahagathbandhan’ government of indulging in “appeasement politics”.
“The decision to conduct the caste survey in Bihar was taken when the JD(U) was part of the NDA. But the way the survey was conducted reveals the ulterior design of the Mahagathbandhan government… population of Muslims and Yadavs were deliberately inflated during the exercise,” Amit Shah said while addressing a rally in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur district.
“…The government is not interested in the welfare of people belonging to other backward communities,” he added.
According to the caste survey results released on October 2, extremely backward communities (ECB) comprising 112 castes constituted 36.01 percent of the population, and backward castes (30 communities) made up another 27.12 percent. Together, other backward classes (OBC), the umbrella group consisting of backward castes and EBCs in the state, is 63.13 percent, while SC forms 19.65 percent and ST is 1.68 percent.
Meanwhile, Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav slammed Shah over his accusation, saying he should conduct a caste census in the country.
“Amit Shah claims that the Muslim and Yadav population was deliberately shown more (in Bihar caste survey). I just want to tell him, if that has happened, then he should conduct a caste census in the country and in all the BJP-ruled states,” Yadav told the media.
Continuing his attack on Shah, the Bihar deputy CM added, “All these nonsense talks comes from him…Whenever he comes here, he lies and talks nonsense because he doesn’t have anything to say otherwise. We are distributing jobs here, he will not talk about that.”
(With inputs from agencies)