Bihar Caste Survey: 36% Extremely Backward Classes and 27% Backward Classes

Data from a caste-based survey has now been made public for the first time in Bihar. According to the research, 19.7% of people are from scheduled castes, 36.1% are from extremely backward classes, 27.1% are from backward classes, and 1.7% are from scheduled tribes. 15% of people in the population are generic. Over 13.1 million people live in the state as a whole.

According to the survey, the Yadav community, which includes Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, is the largest subgroup, making up 14.27% of all OBC categories.

The report’s repercussions, which will almost undoubtedly cause a political controversy, will probably include proposals for raising the current 27 per cent restriction on OBC quotas. They now make up 63.1% of the state, according to data provided months before the 2024 Lok Sabha election.

The research emphasizes the OBCs’ electoral power and numerical dominance in Bihar.

On Gandhi Jayanti, the anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar wrote on X (previously Twitter) to applaud the publication of the statistics.

“A conference of the nine parties in the Bihar Assembly will be summoned soon to discuss the caste-based census in Bihar, including the Rashtriya Janata Dal of the Deputy Chief Minister and the BJP, who were formerly allies but are now deadly enemies. The outcomes will be communicated to them. said Nitish Kumar.

Lalu Prasad Yadav, the party leader and father of Mr. Yadav, also responded. “Despite many BJP conspiracies, legal obstacles, and all the conspiracies, today the Bihar government released caste-based survey data,” the former chief minister said in a statement lauding the publication on Gandhi Jayanti.

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The BJP’s response, however, has been predictably negative, with Giriraj Singh, a Lok Sabha member from Bihar and Union Minister, denouncing the caste-based survey findings as “eyewash.”