The Janata alliance in Bihar has accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of “undermining” the interests of the larger Hindu community by ignoring their demand for release of caste data, while making public the census details on population of religious communities.

The parties also questioned the timing of the release of the communal data, asserting that it was done to achieve communal polarization in the upcoming Bihar assembly elections.

Speaking to BusinessLine , Janata Dal (U) MP and party General-Secretary KC Tyagi said the only purpose behind the Central Government’s release of communal data was to achieve “religious polarisation” before the Assembly elections.

“This is the only politics they know and practice. The BJP knows it is losing in Bihar. That is why they want to create communal strife in the State where Hindus and Muslims have lived in peace and harmony,” Tyagi said.

Echoing Tyagi’s views, RJD MP and Lalu Prasad Yadav’s close aide Prem Chand Gupta said the BJP has pushed for the release of census data on religious communities because it sees “obvious political advantage”.

“When we demand that data corresponding to caste is released, we are ignored. But they go ahead and release data with regard to religious communities. The BJP wants to perpetuate certain myths they have built around religious communities. They thrive on creating religious strife,” Gupta told BusinessLine .

“But when it comes to doing something substantial, like affirmative action for socially backward communities that comprise the majority of the Hindu population, they backtrack or simply ignore political parties such as the RJD which have been making such demands,” Gupta added.

According to the census data on population by religious communities released on Tuesday, Muslims recorded a decadal growth rate of 24.6 per cent between 2001 and 2011 touching 17.22 crore while the Hindus grew at 16.8 per cent to clock a population of 96.63 crore during the same period.

While the census figures on religion were released more than four years after compilation of the data, the caste data is yet to be made public. JD (U), RJD, SP, DMK and some other parties have been asking the government to release the caste census figure, which was also supported by the Congress.

The data on socio-economic status of the population was released on July 3.

Tyagi maintained that the caste-based database was demanded because it could be utilised for identification of beneficiaries of various socio-economic programmes, and to reach out to every BPL household.

“JD (U) condemns the Central government’s efforts of publishing religion-based data instead of releasing the caste-based data in the first Socio Economic and Caste Census (SECC) in eight decades,” he said, recalling that when the process for SECC had begun in 2011 during the UPA government, even the late BJP leader Gopinath Munde had demanded that it should be held on the basis of caste.

“This act of the government is somewhere against the welfare of the backward and SC/ST classes.... On the occasion of the coming of Bihar election and the on-going Pattidar agitation in Gujarat, the Central government has released the data of SECC.

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