Census delayed as government wants to end SC/ST quota, says Congress
The 2021 census has been indenitely delayed to end reservation for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs), the Congress alleged on Thursday, stepping up its attack on the BJP-led government over the issue of caste enumeration.
“The census that was due in 2021 has still not been done. It has been delayed by three years. Why? It is because they want to end reservation. They don’t want us to know the population of SCs and STs,” Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh
said at a press conference.
“As a result of the delay in conducting census, about 10 crore people are being denied benets under the Food Security Act, which has been renamed as Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana,” he added.
Though the Congress has been alleging that the BJP wants 400-plus seats in the Lok Sabha to amend the Constitution and end reservations, this is the rst time that the party has linked the delay in conducting the census to reservations for SC and ST communities.
When The Hindu pointed out that the delay was on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Ramesh said,“In 2021, many countries of the world carried out census during COVID. How was India alone an exception to this? Why was it not carried out in 2022, in 2023, or being done in 2024?”
The Congress’ charge came on a day when party president Mallikarjun Kharge wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and charged his advisors of misleading him about “things that are not written in our manifesto”.
“I would be more than happy to meet you in person to explain our Nyay Patra so that as the Prime Miter
you don’t make statements that are false,” Mr. Kharge said in his letter.
“You and your government have repeatedly turned away from the atrocities that the poor and backward women are facing in the country. Today, you talk about their mangalsutra. Isn’t your government responsible for the atrocities against women in Manipur, atrocities against Dalit girls, garlanding of rapists?” asked the Congress chief, in a stinging rebuttal to Mr. Modi’s charge that the Congress would take away wealth, including mangalsutras, from Hindu women and redistribute it among Muslims.
‘PM spreading lies’
Mr. Ramesh also accused Mr. Modi of spreading “lies” to divert attention from real issues in the ongoing Lok Sabha election. He dared the PM to point out where in the party’s manifesto the phrase “redistribution of wealth” had been mentioned.
Rejecting Mr. Modi’s allegation that the Congress would charge inheritance tax from people if it came to power, Mr. Ramesh said, “Prime Minister symbolises asatyamev jayate.”
The Congress leader also asked the Prime Minisnister
to clear his stand on the issue of conducting a caste census, and questioned why the government has not made public the entire dataset of the 2011 socioeconomic caste census (SECC).
“Caste is the basis of our reservation, we can’t be running away from it... The data that we had collected about caste has not been published,” Mr. Ramesh said
The Congress communications chief claimed that after reading the trends from the rst phase of the Lok Sabha election, Mr. Modi has raised communal issues as he wants the Congress on a dierent pitch.