New Delhi: Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a senior functionary of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) spoke against the Opposition support for a nationwide caste census, the Hindutva outfit has issued a clarification of sorts, stating that “Sangh is not against caste census”.RSS publicity in-charge Anand Ambedkar clarified on December 21 that the “Sangh is not against caste census, but such an exercise should be used to achieve overall development of society while ensuring that no harm is caused to social harmony and unity.”Two days ago, Sridhar Gadge, the RSS’s Vidarbha chief, while speaking to legislators from the BJP and the Shiv Sena in Nagpur, had outrightly rejected the idea of a caste census, claiming it would divide society and harm “nationalism”.“We do not see any benefits in it (caste census), instead only harm. It is the root of inequality and we have a clear stand that there should be no inequality, enmity or quarrel,” Gadge had said.Gadge’s remarks on caste census came in tandem with Prime Minister Modi’s rejection of it at his parliamentary constituency Varanasi. On December 18, addressing a rally, Modi attacked the Opposition parties batting for caste census by stating that he knew only four castes – youth, women, deprived sections and farmers.Modi’s stand is, however, not in line with BJP leader and home minister Amit Shah, who had said in the run-up to the Chhattisgarh assembly elections that the party has “never opposed the idea of caste census”. Shah’s statement was to counter the opposition Congress’s promise to carry out a caste census if it returns to power.In September, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat was seen making a U-turn on caste-based reservations. While he was seen endorsing it, his statement in 2015, however, was not in its support. That 2015 opposition of Bhagwat’s against caste-based reservation is widely seen by political observers to have harmed BJP in the Bihar assembly elections.In 2017, RSS’s publicity chief Manmohan Vaidya had also opposed caste-based reservation at the Jaipur Literature Festival.The current contradictory statements by the BJP top leaders and those from its ideological fount on caste census come across as an attempt to keep the issue ambivalent in the public sphere, keeping in mind not just the recent assembly polls where the Congress had categorically supported caste census but also the BJP’s prospects in the 2024 parliamentary elections.