New Delhi: A working paper by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) claiming a substantial jump in the share of the Muslim population in the country has evoked sharp reactions from opposition parties.
D Raja, General Secretary of Communist Party of India said that the paper has been brought to polarise the voters on communal lines.
"BJP government has no data on COVID deaths, migrant labourers & their miseries. The government has not conducted any survey on poverty or unemployment. They have not conducted the national census. But suddenly, during general elections, the PM-EAC has come out with data on population, with the sole objective of polarisation," he said.
The paper titled 'Share of Religious Minorities: A Cross-Country Analysis (1950-2015) has stated that the share of the majority Hindu population decreased by 7.82% between 1950 and 2015 (from 84.68% to 78.06%), while the share of the Muslim population, which was 9.84% in 1950 increased to 14.09% in 2015 -- a 43.15% increase in their share.
AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi called the EAC-PM paper an outcome of WhatsApp University.
RJD leader and former Bihar deputy chief minister Tejaswi Yadav questioned the veracity of the report and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to focus on common man's issues such as unemployment and price rise.
"Please stop raking up Hindu-Muslim issues and talk about the real issues. How can population numbers be arrived at without holding a nationwide census," Yadav said.
The EAC-PM paper written by Prof. Shamika Ravi, Abraham Jose and Apurv Mishra provides a detailed cross-country analysis of the share of religious minorities in 167 countries from 1950 to 2015.
"India has seen the second most significant decline in the majority population (7.82%), only next to Myanmar (10%) within the immediate South Asian neighbourhood. Minority populations have shrunk substantially in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Afghanistan," noted the paper.