Lucknow, May 9 (IANS): A day after the working paper of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) showed that the share of the majority Hindu population has declined in the country while that of the Muslim population has increased, the Samajwadi Party and Congress have questioned the timing of the release of the report.

Congress spokesman Surendra Rajput said that the timing of the release of the report was designed to give credence to the Hindu-Muslim narrative being pursued by BJP in the ongoing elections.

"The report cites the period between 1950 and 2015. Why does it not talk about the period after that? Moreover, the EAC report is bound to be tailored to suit the ruling party's convenience,” he said.

Senior Samajwadi leader Shivpal Yadav, on the other hand, said that the ruling party was in a "tearing hurry" to release details of Hindu-Muslim population.

"We have been demanding a caste census but they are turning a blind eye to this demand because it will not fetch them votes. The Hindu-Muslim population ratio will now make them scare Hindus and derive political mileage. We do not accept such reports," he said.

According to the EAC-PM, the share of the majority Hindu population declined by 7.82 per cent from 84.68 per cent to 78.06 per cent between 1950 and 2015 while that of Muslim population rose by 43.15 per cent to 14.09 per cent from 9.84 per cent during the period.

The paper, authored by EAC-PM member Shamika Ravi, consultant Apurv Kumar Mishra and Young Professional Abraham Jose, said the Christian population share rose 5.38 per cent from 2.24 per cent to 2.36 per cent during the period.

The share of Sikh population increased by 6.58 per cent from 1.24 per cent in 1950 to 1.85 per cent in 2015.

Even the share of the Buddhist population witnessed a noticeable increase from 0.05 per cent to 0.81 per cent.

"On the other hand, the share of Jains in the population of India decreased from 0.45 per cent in 1950 to 0.36 per cent in 2015. The share of the Parsi population in India witnessed a stark 85 per cent decline, reducing from 0.03 per cent share in 1950 to 0.004 per cent in 2015," the report noted.