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‘Does Cong want to remove minorities’?: PM Modi slams Rahul's remark on caste census
Rahul Gandhi has already announced that the Congress will conduct caste census if voted to power at the Centre.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday hit out at the Congress over Rahul Gandhi's ‘Jitni Abadi, Utna Haq’ (greater population, greater right) remark on the Bihar caste census findings.
Addressing a rally in Jagdalpur in poll-bound Chhattisgarh, the prime minister said,"Since yesterday, Congress leaders are saying 'jitni aabadi utna haq'... I was wondering what the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be thinking. He used to say that the minority has the first right to the country's resources... But now Congress is saying that the population of the community will decide who will have the first right to the country's resources".
“So now do they (Congress) want to decrease the rights of the minority? Do they want to remove the minorities?... So, should the Hindus, who have the largest population, come forward and take all their rights?... I am repeating Congress party is no longer being run by Congress people. Senior leaders of Congress are sitting with their mouths shut, neither are they asked, nor do they dare to speak after seeing all this. Now Congress has been outsourced”, he added.
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Hailing the Bihar caste census on Monday, Gandhi had posted on social media platform X, “The caste census of Bihar has revealed that OBC SC ST are 84% there. Out of 90 secretaries of the Central Government, only 3 are OBC, who handle only 5% of India's budget! Therefore, it is important to know the caste statistics of India. The greater the population, the greater the rights – this is our pledge”. Congress is a ruling ally of Janata Dal (United) and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) in Bihar.
ALSO READ: Bihar caste survey: A new strand to India’s identity politics
The Bihar government's caste census findings revealed that the Other Backward Classes (OBC) and Extreme Backward Classes (EBC) together comprise 63 per cent of the state's population. The survey also stated that Yadavs, the OBC group to which Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav belongs, were the largest in terms of the population, accounting for 14.27 per cent of the total population.
