In an unusually belligerent mood, the Madhya Pradesh Congress is planning to go knocking on doors to conduct a caste census in the state.

Exerting pressure on the BJP government in the state, PCC president Jitu Patwari told The Pioneer, “We will pressurise the government for a caste census, and if it fails, we will conduct our own census and submit a report to the government.”

“Congress party workers would go door to door and conduct the census,” he said.

The census, an attempt to enumerate members of various castes in the country, has long been a demand of the Congress party.Since the conclusion of the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress leadership at the centre has been asserting its stance on the matter. Former party president and Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi has repeatedly raised the issue at various fora.Patwari's pronouncements came in for sharp criticism from the BJP, with party spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal questioning the Congress push for conducting the census only for the Hindu community.

“Why is the Congress not speaking the same about other communities?” he questioned.He accused the Congress of attempting to emulate the British while trying to divide society along caste and class lines.

He said the Congress is bereft of issues and is merely trying to kick up a storm.“If Congress is truly worried about backward castes, then it should project OBC leaders like Arun Yadav and Jitu Patwari as CM faces in the next Madhya Pradesh assembly election,” he added.

Accusing the Congress of pushing the caste census issue with the intent of misleading the people of the country, Agrawal questioned why the Congress did not dispose of the data of castes from the census conducted during its reign in 2011.

Launching a broadside, Agrawal went on to question the Congress's silence on the Supreme Court verdict regarding allowing sub-classification of Scheduled Castes (SCs).The verdict held that the states are required to base their justification of sub-classification on effective and qualitative data indicating ‘inadequate representation’ of the sub-classified backward classes in state services.“Did the Congress implement this in states where it is in power?” he quizzed.

Notably, at a recent meeting, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) overruled criticism while clarifying that it had no objection to a caste census as long as it was undertaken for the welfare of downtrodden communities and not for electoral gains.