Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has called for an all-party meet today, a day after Bihar’s controversial caste-based survey data was released. Presenting findings and planning further course of action are on the agenda of the meeting.
As per the data that was released yesterday by state government showed 36% of state’s population belongs to Extremely Backward Classes while, 27.1% belongs to Backward Classes, 19.7% to Scheduled Castes and 1.7% to Scheduled Tribes. The general population in state belongs to 15.5%.
The largest population group that turned out to be in the survey is of Yadavs, to which Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav belongs. It accounts for 14.27% of the total population.
Meanwhile, 19.65% of state’s population belongs to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.
The findings of the survey will be shared with all the nine state legislatures that agreed for the survey, said Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.
This caste based survey has sparked speculations whether this was a trial to revive the recommendations given by the Mandal Commission that calls for revised caste quotas proportional to population.
However, when Chief Minister Kumar was questioned for the same he denied to give any comment.
“It would not be proper for me to go into such details right now. Let me share the findings with all parties tomorrow. After that, our focus will be on making policies targeted at castes that may be deemed to be in need of greater assistance. I must add, the survey will benefit all castes, without exception,” said the Bihar Chief Minister.
