Agartala: The Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee on Monday demanded a caste-based census in Tripura prior to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls to ensure the protection of the rights of marginalized sections of society.
Party state president Ashish Kumar Saha said Congress had a joint meeting of the SC/ST/OBC/Minority units of the party on Sunday here and laid out a comprehensive plan for revamping the activities at the grass-roots level.
He alleged that the central government was ignorant of the demand of Congress for the immediate implementation of the caste census to provide benefits to OBC communities. Just ahead of the elections, to sway the voters, the BJP passed the Women Reservation Bill, just as an act of showing off and befooling the countrymen.
“BJP had suppressed the bill for many years with an intention to use it as a tool for winning elections but yet to make any announcement about how women of the country would be benefitted by this act,” Saha stated, adding that under the BJP’s rule, women of the country became vulnerable and atrocities against women have increased in manifolds, but punishment is minimum.
The central government is showing no hurry to initiate the process of delimitation of the constituencies, despite Congress having repeatedly demanded a caste census in the country for the holistic development of society, he stated.
The OBC people of the country, especially in the state of Tripura, are deprived of all the government benefits because of the 50 percent cap on the reservation. Congress demanded the enactment of a new law to override the existing rules to include OBCs in the net of social justice, as Saha pointed out.
