CHENNAI: The ruling DMK and the PMK are locking horns over the issue of the state government conducting its own castewise census instead of waiting for the Centre to include caste as a parameter in its ongoing nationwise census operation.
While chief minister M Karunanidhi has rejected the demand from PMK founder S Ramadoss that the State should go ahead with its own castewise enumeration, the PMK leader on Wednesday joined issue with him and came up with arguments in favour of a state-level initiative. "I don't have to nod in agreement whenever Ramadoss makes some demand. Caste-based census is something that the DMK has accepted. However, when there are efforts at a national level to include caste in the census process, we don't want to have our own enumeration as it will interfere with the Union government's exercise," Karunanidhi told on Tuesday.
However, the PMK founder appealed to the DMK regime not to wait indefinitely for the Centre to make up its mind on the issue. "The Union government is only considering a request from some political parties for a caste-based census and is under no great compulsion to exert itself in this regard. However, there is a duty cast on the Tamil Nadu government to abide by the Supreme Court's order in July seeking relevant data to justify its 69% total reservation," Ramadoss said.
He recalled that the apex court had permitted the state to retain its present level of reservation but had given a year's time to come up with data on the caste composition of the population and submit the details to the backward classes commission so that the BC panel could fix a percentage of reservation in tune with the state's requirements. "If the state government doesn't complete the exercise within a year, there is every possibility that the court may decide that the state has failed to justify its present level of reservation and render an adverse verdict," he warned. "Any regime interested in upholding social justice ought to have utilised this opportunity and ordered a caste-wise census the very next day. The Puducherry government has decided to have its own census without anybody making a demand in this regard. And it has already decided to formulate a new reservation policy based on the census," he pointed out.
