NEW DELHI: Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Tuesday said he and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, raising concerns over the ongoing caste census process and demanding that the current open-ended questionnaire be scrapped and replaced with one based on a verified caste list, along the lines of the models adopted by Bihar and Telangana.
In a post on X, Kharge said that open-ended questions would not provide an accurate count of castes and could lead to the same caste being recorded under different names and sub-castes.
“Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha RahulGandhi and I have written a joint letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi ji expressing serious concern over the current process of caste census. It is not possible to accurately count castes through open-ended questions. If the same caste is recorded under different names and sub-castes, the data will be scattered, and the biggest loss will be to OBCs, most backward, and deprived communities,” Kharge wrote.
He added, “Our demand is clear the current questionnaire should be cancelled, a new questionnaire should be prepared based on a verified list of castes, and extensive consultation should be done with political parties, experts, and the public. Like the caste surveys in Telangana and Bihar, conducting the count based on a pre-prepared and verified caste list is a practical solution. The caste census should not only be done, it should also be done correctly.”
