Will take historic steps of caste census, economic mapping to eliminate 50 pc reservation limit: Rahul

NEW DELHI: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday underlined his party’s resolve to conduct a caste census if voted to power, asserting that based on this right step along with economic mapping, the 50 per cent cap on reservation would be uprooted.

Gandhi said the Congress’ slogan is count because that would be the first step towards justice.

In a post in Hindi on X, the former Congress president said, “Have we ever wondered who is poor? How many are there and in what condition? Is it not necessary to count all this?”

The caste survey conducted in Bihar revealed that 88 per cent of the poor population comes from Dalit, tribal, backward and minority communities, Gandhi said. “The figures from Bihar are just a small glimpse of the real picture of the country, we do not even have an idea in what condition the poor population of the country is living in,” he said.

“That is why we are going to take two historic steps -- caste census, economic mapping -- on the basis of which we will uproot the reservation limit of 50 per cent,” he said. This step will ‘X-Ray’ the country and provide correct reservations, rights and share to everyone, Gandhi said.

“This will not only help in making the right policies and plans for the poor but will also help in rescuing them from the struggle of education, earning, medicines, and connect them to the mainstream of development,” Rahul said. “Therefore, wake up, and raise your voice, caste census is your right and it will take you out of the darkness of difficulties, towards the light,” he said. Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said a comprehensive socio-economic caste census will help the government to understand the various aspects related to the people.

This will reveal the financial condition of every family as information related to property, debt burden, land and income will be available, Ramesh said. “The existing caste structure of the country will be known. It will be known which group is prosperous and which is struggling with deprivation,” he said.

Data on economic deprivation from the 2011 socio-economic caste census have been used by the central and state governments for a number of purposes -- from identifying MGNREGS beneficiaries to food security beneficiaries, he said.

The socio-economic caste census was a revolutionary step in governance, as it allowed the government to abandon the old BPL metric in which the poor were identified with a single metric (income) without taking into account factors such as property, debt and land, he said.

“The government may see similar improvements in governance by adding caste-based data to publicly available information. But it is a pity that the Modi government has refused to publish the caste data of the socio-economic caste census,” he said. “Without knowing who actually the people of India are, what their experiences are and what their circumstances are, no government can take the country forward in the right direction,” he said.