Ravi Shankar Prasad questions authenticity of caste survey, says ‘no enumerator met me or my family’

PTI, Oct 5, 2023, 11:03 AM IST

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Raising questions over the procedure followed by the Nitish Kumar government in conducting a caste survey in Bihar, senior BJP leader Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday claimed that enumerators involved in the exercise did not meet him or his family during the survey in Patna.

Talking to reporters here, Prasad said, “The BJP had supported caste-based survey in the state right from the beginning. We are committed to the all-round development of Dalits and OBCs.”

“But I want to ask what kind of a survey has the Nitish Kumar government conducted? I am the MP of Patna Sahib constituency but no enumerator met me or my family. Therefore, questions will be raised on how data was collected,” he said.

He demanded that the data of the survey report be made public so that people know how many families were contacted by the enumerators and how many signatures of heads of families were taken.

“During the exercise, enumerators were supposed to take the signature or thumb impression of the head of the family. In my case, I came to know that somebody had come and asked a person standing outside my house about my family and went. We are receiving similar complaints from a large number of people.”

“There are reports that areas where SC, ST, OBC or EBC are in majority were left out. The entire exercise was carried out by the state government to create a divide among SCs, STs, OBCs and EBCs,” he alleged.

The senior BJP leader asserted that the NDA government at the Centre is ‘tirelessly working for the empowerment and upliftment of SCs, STs, OBCs and EBCs and the saffron party has the highest number of elected MPs and MLAs from these sections’.

The Bihar government on Monday released the data of the caste census, according to which the state has a population of 13.07 crore, of whom 63 per cent are OBCs and EBCs, while 19 per cent are SCs, and around 1 per cent are ST.