CM to meet Amit Shah with all party delegation on caste census and Sarna code

Ranchi: Chief Minister Hemant Soren along with an all-party delegation will hold a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi on September 26 regarding the demand for inclusion of caste-based census and Sarna code. Although the BJP will not attending this meeting, Chief Minister Hemant Soren is getting the support of BJP’s ally AJSU on this issue. Apart from this, representatives of Jharkhand Congress, RJD and Left parties will also be present. The ten-member delegation will include two representatives each from JMM and Congress. 

JMM general secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya said that all parties including BJP have been requested to join the all-party delegation. Congress, RJD, JMM and various organizations including AJSU have been demanding a caste-based census. In the recently concluded monsoon session of the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly, the demand for conducting a caste-based census was made by all political parties except the BJP in the House. The Chief Minister had announced in the House that the government is in favor of the caste census and inclusion Sarna religion code in the census. He had said that if the House is of opinion, the government would constitute an all-party delegation to talk to the Prime Minister on the matter. After this, the Chief Minister had also written a letter to the Prime Minister in this regard for providing time. However as the Prime Minister could not give time, so now the all-party delegation will meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah and make this demand.

On the other hand,  BJP’s Neelkanth Singh Munda has been kept in the all-party delegation, but due to the party’s stand being unclear on this matter, BJP will not join it. Even though the Jharkhand government is going to meet the Union Home Minister regarding the demand of conducting a caste census with an all-party delegation, but on Friday itself, the central government has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court expressing its inability to conduct the caste census. After this, this matter will remain as a matter of politics only.

Prem Shahi Munda, national general secretary of Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Dharma Parishad, has said that the meeting of the National Committee of Gandhi Peace Foundation will be held in New Delhi on October 3. It will include representatives from different states of the country like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra Rajasthan, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, etc. The demand for religious code for the tribals has been going on vigorously for many years all over the country. He said that all the castes in the country have their own religion code but there is no religion code  for tribals. Under the aegis of Akhil Bhartiya Adivasi Dharma Parishad, a comprehensive movement will be outlined in the entire country and a letter will be handed over to the country’s Home Minister, Registrar General of India and presidents of various political parties in this regard.