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Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday reiterated the party’s demand for scrapping the open-ended questions in the caste census and introducing a certified list of castes in the questionnaire. Congress, he said, held 17 press conferences from September 5 to 8, across the nation, rallying for the certified list of castes to be added to the caste census.

Ramesh argued that the caste census is not an exercise to count the populations of the castes but to ensure the right share and social justice using the “right data”.

'A Very Serious Flaw'

In an X post, the Congress MP said, “A caste census is not just about counting castes, but about ensuring social justice. Right kind of questions → Right data → Right share → Social justice. Despite repeated demands by the Congress, the Modi government’s decision to use open-ended questions instead of a dropdown list in the current format of the caste census is a very serious flaw. It seems Prime Minister Modi wants different names, sub-castes, and spellings for the same caste to be recorded in the census so that the entire caste census process fails.”

Party Leadership Raises Objections

He referred to the letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, putting forward the party’s demand. Jairam Ramesh said, “Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi jointly wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on this issue, along with the party’s key demand to conduct a caste census in the right manner, but no response has come yet. Both senior leaders had expressed serious objections to the current process of the caste census in this letter written on August 20.”

“The letter had demanded that the current questionnaire be canceled and a new questionnaire be prepared based on a certified list of castes. Conducting the count based on a pre-prepared and certified caste list, like the caste surveys in Telangana and Bihar, is a practical solution for this. The letter also demanded extensive consultation with political parties, experts, and the public for the new questionnaire. The Congress has reiterated the demand for a caste census along with the above demands by holding 17 press conferences across the country in the last four days on this issue,” the X post read.

Demand for Bihar-Telangana Model

Caste enumeration in the 2027 national Census. Congress has criticized the August 14 notification on the caste census and demanded that the exercise be conducted based on the Telangana and Bihar model. (ANI)