State government should conduct caste based census: Ramadoss tells Stalin
PMK founder S Ramadoss calling on Chief Minister M K Stalin at the Secretariat on Friday, ostensibly to press for a caste survey and for implementing 10.5 per cent exclusive reservation for the Vanniyar community, triggered speculations of the PMK making an attempt to forge an alliance with the DMK for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.
Ramadoss, accompanied by his party’s honorary president G K Mani, had a 35 minute meeting with Stalin and State Ministers Duraimurugan, K N Nehru, M R K Panneerselvam, Thangam Thenarasu, Udhaynidhi Stalin and Rajakannappan and also handed over a letter to the Chief Minister.
In the letter that was made available to the media by the PMK, the party founder stressed on the need for conducting the caste survey that had been an 83-year-old demand in the State and said that there was no legal hurdle in the State taking the caste census as Bihar had already done.
He said the Vanniyar Sangam, since its inception in 1980, had been asking for the caste survey, which was conducted every ten years between 1881 and 1931 and was stopped in 1941 during World War II. It was only appropriate that Tamil Nadu, known as the cradle of social justice, went ahead with its own caste census.