The government has announced that caste enumeration would be included in the forthcoming census exercise in a transparent manner.
Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi expressed full support for the caste census but emphasised the need for a clear timeline. He also offered Congress’ support in helping the government design and implement the census.
Lok Sabha LoP and Congress MP Rahul Gandhi said, “We had said in the Parliament that we will make Caste Census happen. We had also said that we would scrap the 50 per cent cap, the artificial wall that is in place. Narendra Modi used to say that there are just four cases. Don’t know what happened but suddenly after 11 years, the Caste Census has been announced. We completely support it, but we want a timeline. We want to know by when this will happen. This is the first step. Telangana has become a model in the Caste Census and it can become a blueprint. We offer our support to the Govt in designing the Caste Census…There are two examples – Bihar’s and Telangana’s and there is a vast difference between the two…”
Modi govt to conduct caste census
In a major decision, the government on Wednesday announced that caste enumeration will be included in the next census exercise in a “transparent” manner and slammed the opposition parties for using caste survey as a “political tool”.
Announcing the decisions taken by the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs, Ashwini Vaishnaw said the census comes under the purview of the Centre but some states have done caste enumeration in the name of surveys.
Alleging that the states ruled by opposition parties have done caste surveys for political reasons, the minister said it is the Modi government’s resolve to transparently include caste enumeration in the forthcoming pan-India census exercise. The census exercise was to commence in April 2020 but got delayed due to the Covid pandemic.
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