Urging the Tamil Nadu government to initiate a caste survey at the earliest, the Pattali Makkal Katchi on Thursday said that Chief Minister M.K. Stalin had no justification to delay the survey any further and keep urging the Union government to do it instead.
Addressing a conference organised by the PMK to highlight the need for a caste survey, party founder S. Ramadoss blamed the DMK for failing to make use of three opportunities to carry out the exercise on three occasions — in 1989, 2010 and in 2021.
Recalling his meeting with former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi in 2010 to appeal for a caste survey, Dr. Ramadoss said he was ready to meet Mr. Stalin to press for the same. He was responding to a request made on stage by the party’s president Anbumani Ramadoss that the founder should meet the Chief Minister to discuss this issue.
Arguing that the State government had the power and resources to carry out the exercise, Dr. Ramadoss said there was no need to plead with the Union government to do the same. He said no Chief Minister committed to social justice would avoid carrying out a caste survey.
Dr. Anbumani said the State government’s argument that the Union government was better placed legally to carry out the caste census was unjustified. He said though the census was in the Union List of the Constitution, the Collection of Statistics Act of 2008 had given sufficient powers to the State government to carry out a caste survey. Moreover, he pointed out that the Patna High Court had recently upheld the right of the State government in Bihar to carry out the exercise.
Highlighting that a caste survey was necessary to get a realistic picture of the socio-economic development of all the communities, he further said that the survey was also important to safeguard the 69% reservation in force in the State. Pointing to the legal challenge pending before the Supreme Court against the 69% reservation, he said there was a risk that the court may bring down the caste-based reservation to a maximum of 50% if the State government failed to furnish adequate data to back it.
Retired IAS officer K. Ashok Vardhan Shetty said all the arguments against the conduct of a caste survey, including the challenges in its execution and the fear that it may sharpen caste divisions, were unsustainable. Former Union Ministers of State E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan, A.K. Moorthy, former Advocate General of Tamil Nadu G. Masilamani, and PMK honorary president G.K. Mani, and K. Balu, president, Advocates Forum for Social Justice, also spoke in favour of conducting a caste survey.
