Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam general secretary Vellappally Natesan on Wednesday termed the calls to conduct a caste census in the country an election stunt that “lacks sincerity”.
Terming it his personal opinion, Mr. Natesan said the debate on the caste census ahead of the Lok Sabha elections was nothing but a political ploy. “Various parties are competing in making calls for conducting caste census. They are motivated by vote bank politics. The political outfits created the debate just ahead of the polls not for the betterment of the (backward) castes but to win votes,” Mr. Natesan told The Hindu.
He said that if the parties that now call for caste census were sincere about the development of the backward classes in the country, they should have raised the matter earlier. On whether the SNDP Yogam would support caste census in the future, Mr. Natesan termed the question “irrelevant at the moment”.
