Janata Dal (United) today criticized the NDA government for releasing the census data on population of religious communities instead of Socio Economic and Caste Census. In a statement, party General Secretary K C Tyagi alleged that it is an attempt to create religious polarisation ahead of Bihar assembly polls. He said releasing religious data is against the development process of the backward and weaker sections of the society.
According to the data released yesterday, Muslims recorded a decadal growth rate of 24.6 per cent between 2001 and 2011 touching 17.22 crores while the Hindus grew at 16.8 per cent to clock a population of 96.63 crores during the same period.