Mayawati welcomes caste census decision, says step ‘delayed but in right direction’

Lucknow: BSP president Mayawati on Wednesday welcomed the Centre's decision to include caste enumeration in the upcoming national population census and termed it as a step "extremely delayed, but in the right direction".
"BSP has been demanding this for a long time. We hope that the govt will act timely on this decision of public welfare through census and complete it on time," she said.
Mayawati had been demanding a caste-based census in the country for long. In one of her previous posts, she had said that the govts in various states were conducting caste-based census on the pretext of social justice and to cater to public sentiments, but with a half-hearted approach. "It is only when the central govt gets the caste-based census done nationally and gives people their due that this matter can actually be resolved," she had said.
In Oct 2023, a day after the Bihar govt made its data of caste-based census public, Mayawati had said that her party was happy that the politics at the national level was taking a turn in favour of the deprived ‘bahujan samaj'. She demanded a similar exercise in UP and at the national level.
She unequivocally supported caste census even when the demand was raised by her staunch political adversaries like the Samajwadi Party. When SP chief Akhilesh Yadav demanded caste census in UP on behalf of the united opposition during the UP assembly session in Feb 2023, Mayawati supported him, though she was also critical of Akhilesh for not getting caste census done during his tenure as UP CM.
In Aug 2023, after the Patna High Court approved the caste-based census by Bihar govt, Mayawati said, "Similar to the Mandal Commission's recommendations, caste census is also not an issue of politics but of social equality and justice. Such a census is essential to bring poor, deprived, exploited, and weaker sections of people into the mainstream and make them partakers in the development of the country."