Dharmendra Pradhan jabs Cong over caste census credit, rakes up its long-standing opposition

New Delhi, May 1 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday strongly supported the government’s decision to conduct a caste-based census along with the upcoming population census and lashed out at the Opposition for seeking credit and projecting themselves as the ‘champions of social justice’.

Addressing the media at party headquarters here, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan termed the move ‘futuristic’ and said this shows the Modi government’s commitment and firm resolve in ensuring social justice for all, and emancipation as well as empowerment of the marginalised and deprived sections of society.

“This decision will help bring a level playing field for all the sections. It will have a futuristic impact,” the Union minister told the scribes.

Pradhan scoffed at the Congress and INDIA bloc’s attempts to take credit for the caste census decision, and questioned their politicking, asking why the country had to keep waiting for seven decades for this.

“Some parties got rattled by the caste census announcement. They claim - Sarkar unka hai, system hamara hai’ (government is theirs but the system is ours). If such was the case, why was the caste census never conducted after Independence,” Pradhan said, apparently reacting to Rahul Gandhi’s assertions, Wednesday evening.

“The only caste count that was done was in 1931, i.e., before Independence. Why didn’t they do it in 1951 and then after? Who was in power, who had control of the government?” he asked.

Highlighting Congress’ long-standing ignorance and ‘deliberate’ negligence of the backward caste and communities, he stated, “the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was so much opposed to the caste-based quotas that he had written to chief ministers that merit would suffer if reservation is implemented.”

The Union Minister further accused previous Congress regimes of putting the Mandal Commission report in cold storage and also overlooking the nation’s highest civilian award for Babasaheb.

“The Mandal Commission report was put on the back burner for 10 years. When the V.P. Singh government implemented the Mandal Commission report, the BJP had extended support to it,” he said.

He said the BJP supported the implementation of the Mandal Commission report while former PM Rajiv Gandhi had opposed it.

“It was our suggestion that the Mandal Commission report should be implemented. However, Rajiv Gandhi, as the then Leader of Opposition, fiercely opposed reservation for the OBCs,” he pointed out.

“They talk about social justice, but they are the ones who denied the nation’s highest honour to the architect of the Constitution. It was only in the 1990s that Babasaheb was given the Bharat Ratna award,” he pointed out.

He also took the Congress party to task over caste surveys in party-led states, asking whether they don’t understand the ‘difference’ between census and survey.

He said that the grand old party has remained perennially opposed to the empowerment of the deprived, Dalit and the backward sections of society.

“Today, they are claiming to be champions of social justice, but their hypocrisy over the issue is evident than ever,” he added.

--IANS

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