BJP seeks white paper on CM's Europe trip

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday questioned the chief minister Hemant Soren-led 11-member delegation's recent trip to Spain and Sweden seeking investment from firms and demanded the state government to release a white paper on the expenditure and gains from the tour.

- Vishal Kant

RANCHI: Welcoming the Centre's decision to conduct a caste census, the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) said on Wednesday that the development was a moral victory for all opposition parties that have been pushing for it for several years, even as the Hemant Soren-led party reiterated its demand to include a separate Sarna religious code for the Scheduled Tribes (ST) community in the decadal census.

JMM general secretary and spokesperson Supriyo Bhattacharya during a press conference said the caste census would also help raise the 50 per cent cap on reservations in jobs and educational institutions.

"This is a moral victory for all non-BJP parties in the opposition. The opposition has been demanding it for about a decade now. The Narendra Modi government decided this due to growing public pressure, as it was opposing similar exercises being conducted in Karnataka and Telangana. Nonetheless, we welcome this decision. This will also help us increase reservation in the state—a bill for which has already been passed in the assembly—besides fixing seats in the delimitation of elected bodies," said Bhattacharya.

The JMM leader also reiterated the demand of the INDIA bloc government to grant a separate religious code for the ST community in the nationwide census. A resolution to grant the 'Sarna Tribal Religious Code' was unanimously passed by the Jharkhand assembly on November 11, 2020, and sent to the Centre for inclusion in the decadal census, due in 2021.