BJP seeks population control policy in Bihar

PATNA: A day after the state cabinet approved the proposal to conduct caste-based and economic enumeration of the population, the state BJP on Friday raised its pet demand of population control policy and accompanying law for the state. A few state BJP leaders have also been advising the government to make the exercise foolproof, bereft of errors.
Minister from BJP quota in the Nitish Kumar government, Neeraj Kumar Babloo, said now that the caste-based headcount would be conducted, it has become equally incumbent for the government to bring its own law on population control in the state in view of the “population explosion” in the state.
Babloo also said the exercise should also count the infiltrators into the state, be they the Bangladeshis or the Rohingya Muslims. “There is utmost need for population control among the Muslims. It has been seen that they hide the number of persons in their families. They have three wives and around 20 children, but do not disclose it,” Babloo said.
He said due to population explosion, the developmental initiatives taken by the government have been failing to yield fruits.
He said the land area of the state was limited and the population explosion might cause “maara-maari” (fight and struggle) for land.
Countering the stand of the BJP as enunciated by Babloo, JD(U) state president Umesh Kushwaha said CM Nitish is aware of the population explosion, but he has explained that the problem could be tackled by increasing female literacy and education. “He has shown that the spread of education among girls leads to population control,” Kushwaha said.
On the other hand, Rajya Sabha member and senior BJP functionary Sushil Kumar Modi said the state government should send its teams to Karnataka and Telangana to study the way they conducted the caste-based census. While Karnataka has not released its report even after seven years, Telangana had the survey done in one day, Modi said.
He also said the state government teams should also look into the reasons as to why the results of the socio-economic and caste census (SECC), 2011, was not published. Its initial reading showed 40 lakh castes and around 1.40 crore errors, overall, in the SECC report.