Caste Census: Rahul Gandhi welcomes government’s decision, seeks timeline

The Congress leadership was taken by surprise by the government’s announcement on the caste census but the party soon started dealing with the situation with leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi welcoming the move while trying to claim credit for it by saying it was the Congress’ campaign and pressure that forced the government’s hand. Congress circles are conscious of the Centre’s larger attempt in the announcement, by leveraging on the first-mover advantage, to neutralise the Congress erecting its caste-census demand as its main plank for future elections, something that now also presents the Opposition party with the task of a tactical rework besides having to gradually look for fresh untapped planks. The Congress is also witnessing a competitive upmanship on credit-claiming from within the INDIA bloc with RJD and SP and others — the very lot that had upstaged Congress on the Mandal issue — now stressing on their deeper political roots on social justice plank to attribute caste census credit to their forefathers’ decades-long efforts.Addressing the media on Wednesday evening, Rahul Gandhi said the caste census has to be time-bound. He also subtly indicated how PM Modi used to say he recognised only “four castes” (poor, women, youth and farmers) but Gandhi refused to hazard a guess on the timing of the decision. “We had said in Parliament that we will make the caste census happen. We had said that we would scrap the 50% cap, the artificial wall that is in place. Narendra Modi used to say that there are just four castes. Don’t know what happened but suddenly after 11 years, the caste census has been announced. We have put enough pressure on the government to get the caste census done. We completely support it but we want a timeline. We want to know when this will happen. This is the first step. Telangana has become a model in caste census and it can become a blueprint. We offer our support to the government in designing the caste census…There are two examples — Bihar’s and Telangana’s — and there is a vast difference between the two.”