Patna: RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Sunday demanded separate budgetary provisions for backward classes in proportion to their population in the country and threatened to gherao Narendra Modi government if Union finance minister Arun Jaitley fails to do so. Reiterating his demand for publication of caste data of the socio economic and caste census (SECC), Lalu also demanded a separate ministry for backward classes at the Centre.

“We hope the Centre will make separate provisions for people from backward classes, as we have demanded, when the next budget is tabled in Parliament on February 29. We will gherao the government in New Delhi if Jaitley fails to do so,” Lalu said while addressing the 9th triennial open session of RJD’s national council at SK Memorial Hall here.

“The SECC’s economic data released by the Centre last year exposed the crude reality about poverty and socioeconomic inequality prevailing in the country. As per the SECC data, 7.05 crore of the 17.91 crore families living in the rural areas have less than Rs10,000 annual income. Approximately 5.9 crore families in villages are dependent on agriculture while 9.16 crore families are dependent on daily wage earnings.

Altogether 4.08 lakh families are ragpickers, 6.68 lakh families beg for survival while 56% of the rural population is landless. Though Modi government released the economic data, it deliberately concealed the caste census. It shows the Centre’s bad intention,” Lalu said.

Source: timesofindia