The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government appears to be in no hurry to take a formal decision on enumeration of caste in Census 2011, and wants the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to first give its approval in writing before it presses ahead, sources said.
This is because since the last session of Parliament, the BJP's position on including caste in the census has undergone a change, with the RSS categorically rejecting the demand and party president Nitin Gadkari, too, coming out in the open against the idea.
During the budget session, the BJP, along with all other political parties, had supported the idea, so much so that the ruling Congress, which was divided on the issue, was compelled to back the idea and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh – under pressure from parties across the political spectrum – gave an assurance to that effect on the floor of the house. A Group of Ministers (GOM) was set up to examine the issue “expeditiously” and sources indicated that its brief was to examine the modalities of how caste enumeration in Census 2011 could be done rather than whether it should be done.
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But with the BJP position suddenly turning ambivalent, the GOM during its meeting on July 1 decided to seek the views of all other political parties in writing within a month before moving ahead. At that meeting, the feelingwas that the government should not find itself in the position it was left with on the Telengana issue, when it announced that it had accepted the idea of carving out a new state from Andhra Pradesh without consulting all other political parties, leading to a political crisis. This time, sources said, it wanted to build a consensus on the caste census issue before taking a step that had the potential to be politically contentious, especially as many senior leaders in the Congress, including the Prime Minister, were uncomfortable with it.
Currently, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, ahead of the monsoon session starting in a week's time, is holding meetings with representatives of the various political parties seeking their views on a range of issues, including caste enumeration. During his interaction with NDA convenor and Janata Dal-United leader Sharad Yadav on July 19, he reportedly told Mr Yadav that if he was so keen to see caste enumeration in Census 2011, he should persuade his colleagues in the NDA, especially the BJP, to give their response soon.
On the same day, Mr Mukherjee had a luncheon meeting with senior BJP leaders LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, but sources said the party was still formulating its views on the issue.
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He will meet leaders of the Left Parties on Thursday as a part of this current exercise.