New Delhi: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi announced on Monday, October 9, that the four state governments run by the party will conduct a caste survey and follow it up with a socio-economic survey. Gandhi announced the Congress Working Committee (CWC)’s decision earlier this morning in the presence of the four Congress chief ministers – Rajasthan’s Ashok Gehlot, Chhattisgarh’s Bhupesh Baghel, Karnataka’s Siddaramaiah, and Himachal Pradesh’s Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu.In what was a clear display of strength, Gandhi said that the CWC has unanimously decided to not merely support the demand for a pan-Indian caste census but also pressure the Narendra Modi government to conduct it. “This is a historic decision taken by the CWC. We will not merely support it but also force the BJP to carry out a caste census or get out of the way so that we can do it. The country needs a caste census,” Gandhi said.The Wayanad MP said that a census that reveals the composition of OBC, Dalit and Adivasi communities in the country will open up a window for a “new development paradigm”. He likened a caste census to an X-ray which will help the governments diagnose the real problems and help increase the participation of the poor in governance. He added that while Prime Minister Narendra Modi was attempting to deflect public attention from the matter, the Congress will assert its weight on the issue as a caste census is about identifying the poor of the country and knowing if they have proportionate hissedari or participation in the functioning of the government and other public institutions.“The BJP has 10 chief ministers but only one of them is an OBC. Even he is on his way out,” he said, indirectly referring to Madhya Pradesh’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who is allegedly being sidelined by the BJP machinery. With the presence of Gehlot, Siddaramaiah, and Baghel – all belonging to OBC communities – on the dais, the Congress leader sought to make the contrast evident. Gandhi averred that he was confident of his party winning the upcoming state elections because of the development work done by the Congress chief ministers.He highlighted the policies of each chief minister as models that the Congress could implement at the central level if elected to power. He pointed out Gehlot’s public health care initiatives; Sukhu’s prompt ground-level disaster management during the Himachal Pradesh floods; Baghel’s decision to prioritise farmers’ issues, like giving them the best rates for their crops; and Siddaramaiah’s social security measures for the poor.Gandhi said that Modi has still not issued any clarification about his pointer in the Parliament that only three of the 90 bureaucrats working as secretaries of the Union government belong to OBC communities. “A caste census is a very progressive step for the emancipation of the poor and the future of our country,” he said, adding that the CWC’s unanimous decision to support a caste census wasn’t a “political decision” or even a move about “caste or religious politics” but about nyay (justice) for the poor.“Once caste census data comes, we will know where the dhan (resources or money) is,” Gandhi said.What a sixer by @RahulGandhi in today’s Caste Census Press Conference. He asked the journalists present,How many of you are Dalits? No one raised their hand!How many of you are Adivasis? No one raised their hand!How many of you are OBCs? No one raised their hand!He then… pic.twitter.com/rlQ34Nkl2q— Srivatsa (@srivatsayb) October 9, 2023He said that the Congress governments, too, are at fault for not releasing the caste census data, referring to the 2011 Socio-Wconomic and Caste Census conducted by the Manmohan Singh government. “But what we didn’t do earlier, we will do it now,” Gandhi said.The CWC also passed a resolution that welcomed the Justice G. Rohini commission for sub-categorisation of OBCs but emphasised the need to back it up with “detailed data on the socio-economic position of various communities”, which the Congress said could be obtained “either from the still unreleased data from the 2011 socio-economic and caste census or a fresh caste census.” Recently, the Bihar government released its own caste survey data and will soon release the socio-economic indices of around 211 caste groups.On being asked whether all the INDIA bloc parties have the same opinion, Gandhi said that a majority of them believe that a caste census should be conducted. “There might be a few who have a slightly different opinion but that is not a problem. I am confident that a vast majority of the INDIA alliance is going to support and also push the idea of a caste census,” Gandhi said.“Almost 50% of India’s population belongs to OBC. We believe that they should have a proportionate right to drive government decisions,” he said. He said that while Modi may belong to an OBC community, he has only “distracted” the OBC communities from demanding proportionate participation in the government. “Our question is whether they are getting proportionate representation,” Gandhi said.“If we are elected to power, we will release the caste census data (conducted in 2011) on the first day,” he said.Kharge’s remarksEarlier in the morning, the CWC met for the second time after its marathon meeting in Hyderabad on September 16, 2023. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge chaired the meeting, summing up the party’s decisions taken in the last meeting “…we collectively resolved to free the country from divisive and polarising politics, strengthen the forces of social equity and justice, and provide the people a Union Government that is responsible, responsive, sensitive, transparent and accountable,” he said in his opening remarks. He hit out at the Union government for deliberately delaying the historic women’s reservation Bill by linking it to the census and the delimitation process, and for not keeping the opposition parties in the loop regarding the government’s agenda before calling a special session of the parliament.“The country is still wondering why the Bill was not implemented immediately and why OBC women were excluded from the scope of the Bill. Why were the clauses of census and delimitation added to complicate women’s reservation? It is unclear when it will turn into reality. So, it seems that the Bill was only brought for marketing and vote-bank politics with no intention of its expeditious implementation,” Kharge said.The Congress president also took note of the prime minister’s continued absence from the conflict-ridden Manipur. “The prime minister who could not find time to visit Manipur even once in the last 5 months to provide succour and relief to the much wounded sisters and brothers of Manipur finds umpteen opportunities for electioneering and spreading a web of lies and falsehoods,” he said.He also told the CWC members that there was a need to let people know that the first steps towards a women’s reservation Bill were initiated by the Congress governments to defeat the “lies” peddled by BJP leaders who claimed that the Congress only supported the Bill out of compulsion. “As a matter of fact, it was Shri Rajiv Gandhi’s vision that led to the Amendment, which aimed to provide 33% reservation for women at the Panchayat and Urban Local Bodies. Thanks to this, the maximum number of elected women in the world are in India (around 14 lakh) today,” Kharge said.He reiterated that the party has been consistently supporting the demand for a nationwide caste census which will entail “proper implementation and delivery of government programmes and welfare schemes”. He spoke about the upcoming assembly elections in Telangana, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Mizoram and the 2024 Lok Sabha polls and emphasised on the need for the party to replicate the “successful strategy” of Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh that resulted in electoral victories.“In light of this, considering that we have already solidified the INDIA bloc and conducted three productive meetings, we must expedite our efforts to ensure favourable results in the General Elections and hit the ground running. We need to highlight the failures of the government and constantly raise issues concerning the common people of the country,” Kharge said.