India, May 1 -- Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday said the Centre's decision to include caste enumeration in the upcoming national census could be politically motivated and possibly tied to assembly elections in Bihar later this year.

Siddaramaiah also said that it was important to conduct a thorough socio-economic and educational survey.

At a press interaction in Bengaluru, Siddaramaiah credited Rahul Gandhi's sustained advocacy for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government's decision to enumerate caste in the next census.

"I congratulate Rahul Gandhi more because, for the last five years, he has been urging the Central government to conduct a caste census," the chief minister said, adding that there had been a long-...