Now, Bansal speaks up in favour of caste census

NEW DELHI: The Congress leadership’s advice to its ministers not to air their opinion on caste-based census has not stopped proliferation of views on the matter. A day after the party ticked off law minister Veerappa Moily for going public with his pro-caste census opinion, parliamentary affairs minister Pawan Kumar Bansal joined the debate by criticising his ministerial colleagues who are opposed to caste headcount.

Mr Bansal used an interview with a news agency to dismiss the view of his colleagues in the government that the move was regressive and an “insidious” one. He also claimed that a majority in the Cabinet was in its favour.

Making a strong pitch for caste census, Mr Bansal said the “preponderant view” during the debate in the Lok Sabha was that it should be included in the census. “There is nothing insidious or invidious in it, and it is not a regressive one,” he said, dubbing moves opposing the inclusion of caste as “all idealism and utopia”.

It be recalled that minister of state for home affairs Ajay Maken had recently written to young MPs urging them to oppose the “regressive” move that was being pushed as part of “divisive agenda for short-term political gain”.