Kharge And Rahul Write To PM Modi Urging Withdrawal Of Caste Census Questionnaire
· India · Times of India, The Hindu, Indian Express
Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday urging the government to revise how caste information is being gathered in the census. The opposition leaders called for the immediate withdrawal of the existing questionnaire, terming the current open-ended system misleading. They warned that recording castes through unstandardized open-ended questions could split single communities into thousands of distinct names and yield unusable data. According to the letter, inaccurate caste categorization would distort assessments of backward, extremely backward, and disadvantaged communities. The Congress leaders emphasized that precise data is essential for implementing social justice policies and determining the true size of the OBC population. Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh also criticized the BJP-led Centre, describing the current census efforts as a whitewash.
Why it matters
The demand directly challenges the central government's census framework, influencing how social welfare policies and OBC reservation data will be formulated in India. The dispute affects millions of citizens dependent on targeted government welfare and employment schemes.
Read the original report — Times of India
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