New Delhi: Conscious that the Opposition, particularly the Congress has doubled down on the demand for the caste census, prime minister Narendra Modi in his reply to the ‘Motion of Thanks to the President’s Address’ in the Rajya Sabha defended his government’s refusal to agree to conduct one and took recourse to invoking correspondence of India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru was born in 1889 and died in 1964.The Congress has made the demand of a country-wide caste census central to its pitch ahead of the Lok Sabha elections and accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of opposing the development of lower castes.In his speech that lasted about 1 hour 30 minutes, Modi accused Nehru of opposing reservations, and alluded to Congress MP Rahul Gandhi’s recent assertions in which he has claimed while demanding a caste census in the country that there are only 3 members of the OBC community among the 90 secretaries working in the government of India.“Nowadays I think of Nehru quite a bit,” said Modi as he went on to read a translated letter written by India’s first prime minister to chief ministers.“’I dislike any kind of reservation, particularly in jobs and services. I am strongly against anything which leads to inefficiency and second rate standards’. This is what Nehru wrote in his letter to chief ministers,” he said.“This is why I say that they are against reservation by birth. Nehru used to say that if SC/ST/OBC get reservations in jobs then the standard of government work will fall. Today those who make us count that there are this many (SC/ST/OBC) here, this is the root. They had stopped recruitment. Had the government recruited at that time and promoted them then today they would have been here today,” he said.Modi alleged that for the Congress, Nehru’s words are “set in stone”.Interestingly, Modi’s one-time mentor L.K. Advani, had in 2004, quoted these same lines by Nehru with another interpretation, as pointed out by journalist and writer Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.“I wish to make it categorically clear that I have not cited Nehru’s views to endorse them in their entirety. The BJP believes that reservations are indeed needed to help SCs, STs, and OBCs to overcome their social and economic backwardness. The point we wish to make is two-fold: Nehru was aware of the limitation of reservations as the sole instrumentality for the socio-economic uplift of those who are socially and economically backward. Secondly, and more relevant to our present context, he was totally opposed to reservations on communal considerations,” Advani wrote.Meanwhile, Modi also said that the Congress opposed reservations for SC/ST/OBCs in Jammu and Kashmir for seven decades.The Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed two bills – the Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2024, that adds Valmiki community as a synonym of Chura, Balmiki, Bhangi, and Mehtar communities in the list of Scheduled Castes in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir; and the the Constitution (Jammu and Kashmir) Scheduled Tribes Order (Amendment) Bill, 2024, which seeks to add four communities to the ST list in the UT.Also read: J&K: Protests Over Tribal Status for Paharis; Admin Locked Farooq and Omar Abdullah’s Gates, Says NCAmbedkar, Bharat Ratna and Droupadi MurmuModi also accused the Congress of ignoring B.R. Ambedkar, and opposing President Droupadi Murmu’s nomination to the post on the basis of her caste.“Congress and its allies have never given rights to SC/ST/OBC. Babasaheb’s thoughts and politics were discarded by them. They did not want to give him Bharat Ratna either. That too was conferred on him, by a BJP-supported government. Not just this, Sitaram Kesri who belonged to a backward caste and was the Congress president, was thrown onto the footpath. The country saw what the Congress did to Sitaram Kesri,” he said.This is not the first time that Modi has referred to the former Congress president, Kesri. During the Chhattisgarh election campaign in 2018, he had referred to Kesri as a Dalit “who was not allowed to complete his term.”Modi also accused the Congress of opposing an “Adivasi beti” or daughter, as the President of the country.“You can oppose us ideologically, I would understand. But it was not ideological. Because you proposed a candidate who had left us,” he said referring to Yashwant Sinha who was the opposition candidate for President in 2022.“Your opposition was against an Adivasi beti,” said Modi.“There is no end to insulting the President even now. The kind of statements that have been made against the President from their leaders we have seen.”Modi said that the NDA government has always put Dalits and Adivasis first and the flagship schemes of his government including Ujjwala Yojana, Swacchh Bharat Abhiyan were all targeted to the poor who belong to the lower castes.“A narrative has been placed here to negate facts. Who does this benefit? You are losing your own credibility in this way.”“Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas is not a slogan, it is Modi’s guarantee,” he said.Karnataka’s protest over tax injusticeLong accused by non-BJP state governments of not sharing tax which is their due, economists having pointed out even 42% that is meant to be given to them is being subverted. Economist Jayati Ghosh had told The Wire, “they managed to circumvent this by shifting a lot of taxes onto cesses and surcharges…[this has meant]…that in 2022-23, it was only 31% going to the states, instead of 42% and in 2023-24, only 30.4%.” The Reporters Collective had revealed the CEO of Niti Aayog confessing as to how “immediately after becoming the prime minister in 2014, Narendra Modi held backdoor negotiations with the Finance Commission of India to significantly cut funds allocated to the country’s states. However, the head of the commission, an independent constitutional body deciding states’ shares from central taxes, resisted, and Modi had to back off.”Modi said in the House, “Our tax, our money! What language is being used? This is dangerous to the future of the country,” he said.He did so as he referred to the Congress’ Karnataka government with MPs, MLAs and MLCs protesting in the national capital citing tax injustice to the state and said that the Congress is attempting to break the country.“A nation is not just a piece of land for us. If one limb of the body doesn’t function, the entire body is considered disabled. If any part of the country is in pain, it should be felt all over the country. Similarly, if one corner of the country is not getting developed, the country cannot become developed. “The language that is being spoken today, new narratives are being built to break the country. A state government has decided to hit the streets in protest. What can be a bigger misfortune for the country? If an Adivasi child from Jharkhand wins an Olympic medal, will we see them as a child from Jharkhand or from India? What are we saying? What language being used? Can we say that vaccines were made in one corner so cannot be used by others in the country? Such a mindset is coming out of a national party. It is unfortunate!”In the last approximately 20 minutes of his speech, Modi listed the achievements of his government, as he had done in his reply in the Lok Sabha.(with inputs from Wire Staff)