E-Paper
Congress sets up panel on caste-census
According to a statement issued by Congress, the panel will comprise senior leaders Abhishek Singhvi, Salman Khurshid, Mohan Prakash, RPN Singh, PLPunia and Kuldeep Bishnoi.
Amid a growing chorus for caste-based census and sub-categorisation of castes in the country, Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Friday set up a committee, headed by former Union minister Verappa Moily, to “study the matter”.
According to a statement issued by Congress, the panel will comprise senior leaders Abhishek Singhvi, Salman Khurshid, Mohan Prakash, RPN Singh, PLPunia and Kuldeep Bishnoi.
“The last publicised caste census was conducted during the British Raj, for the past many years, all political parties depended on manipulated figures of OBCs and make both political and economic programmes based on distorted figures. Even the Mandal Commission was based upon imaginary figures,” panel chairman Moily told HT.
“As there was no data, UPA decided to have a socio-economic caste census to make its social and welfare programmes more fruitful. That’s how the SECC was ordered. A caste census is necessary as we are building a castle without foundation,” he added.
On August 23, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar led an 11-member delegation and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi to demand caste-wise enumeration of the Other Backward Classes in the census. The Centre had informed the Lok Sabha in July that it would not enumerate caste-wise population, except those for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
The clamour for a caste-based census has also risen in the wake of the upcoming polls in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and other states in 2022.
