An all-party delegation from Jharkhand led by Chief Minister Hemant Soren met Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday and demanded that a caste-based census be conducted.
The visit came close on the heels of the Centre telling the Supreme Court that a caste census of backward classes is “administratively difficult and cumbersome” and excluding such information from the purview of Census is a “conscious policy decision.” The delegation led by Soren included the Congress’ Jharkhand unit president Rajesh Thakur, BJP state president and Rajya Sabha member Deepak Prakash, Congress’ legislature party leader Alamgir Alam, AJSU president and ex-deputy chief minister Sudesh Mahato, and RJD leader Satyanand Bhoka.