Lucknow: Akhilesh Yadav, leader of the Samajwadi Party, took aim at the governing BJP on Saturday, saying that the only way a "Ram Rajya" could be established was through a caste census.
This announcement from Yadav follows similar ones from the Congress and the JD(U) a few days earlier, which called for a caste census and sought reservation based on the numbers of SC, ST, and OBC populations.
Mallikarjun Kharge, head of the Congress party, has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, pressing for a new caste count. Without such information, he argued, social justice and empowerment efforts would be insufficient. Nitish Kumar, chief minister of Bihar and a leader of the JD (U), backed the proposal made by the Congress party.—Inputs from Agencies