Rahul accuses Government of betraying Bahujans

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi accused the Narendra Modi Government on Wednesday of openly betraying the country’s Bahujans by having “no concrete framework, no time-bound plan, no discussion in Parliament and no dialogue with the public” on the caste census exercise to be undertaken.  His criticism came after the Government’s response in the Lok Sabha to his question on the next census and caste enumeration.

“In Parliament, I asked the Government a question about the caste census -- its response is shocking. No concrete framework, no time-bound plan, no discussion in Parliament and no dialogue with the public. There is not even any desire to learn from the strategies of successful caste surveys in other States,” Rahul Gandhi said in a social media post in Hindi.

“This stance of the Modi Government on the caste census is an open betrayal of the country’s Bahujans,” the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha added.

Rahul Gandhi posed three questions in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, asking for the details and tentative timelines of the key procedural steps to prepare for the decadal census, including the preparation of questions and setting schedules.

He also asked whether the Government has any proposal to publish the draft census questions and seek inputs from the general public or people’s representatives on these queries.

The Congress leader further asked as to whether the Government is taking into consideration the best practices from previous exercises, including the caste surveys conducted in various States, and if so, the details thereof.

In a written reply to his posers, Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said, “The Census 2027 will be conducted in two phases, namely Phase I House Listing and Housing Census from April to September, 2026 in a period of 30 days as per the convenience of the State/UT Governments, followed by Phase II Population Enumeration (PE).”

Population enumeration will be done in February 2027 with the reference date of 00:00 hours of March 1, 2027, except for the Union Territory of Ladakh, the snow-bound non-synchronous areas of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and the States of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where it will be done in September 2026 with the reference date of 00:00 hours of October 1, 2026, the minister informed.