Quick Take
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Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge supports caste data in the census.
He emphasizes that the announcement requires a budget and action.
Census funding is currently set at ₹1.575 crore, Kharge said.
New Delhi:
Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday welcomed the Centre’s decision to include caste-based data in the upcoming national census but stressed that a mere announcement without any effort to initiate the exercise is not enough.
Speaking to NDTV, Mr Kharge, who is the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, said: “It is a good decision. For this decision, we have been waiting for a long time. I had written a letter earlier and recently also… to remind them (the government).”
He added: “It is a good decision but simply telling and keeping quiet doesn’t work. You have to put in the budget, a sufficient budget you have not put, now you will have to make an additional budget. Whatever expenditure comes, the central government should make allocations.”
In a post on X earlier, Mr Kharge said “there is only an allocation of ₹ 1.575 crore for the census in this year’s budget, so it is a valid question as to how and when the government will complete it”. “The Congress Party demands that the Modi government should, as soon as possible, make budget provisions and start the work of census and caste census with complete transparency,” he said.
भारतीय राष्ट्रीय कांग्रेस ने लगातार जातिगत जनगणना की माँग उठाई थी, जिसके सबसे मुखर पक्षधर श्री @RahulGandhi रहे। आज मोदी सरकार ने Census के साथ जातिगत जनगणना कराने की घोषणा की है। ये सही कदम है जिसकी हम पहले दिन से माँग कर रहे थे।
मैंने कई बार इसे संसद में उठाया और प्रधानमंत्री…
— Mallikarjun Kharge (@kharge) April 30, 2025
In a major decision, the Union Government has decided to include caste enumeration in the forthcoming census exercise in a “transparent” manner.
The last nationwide census was completed in 2011 and the next decadal one was to commence in April 2020 but got delayed due to the Covid pandemic.
Addressing reporters earlier in the day, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the caste census would empower the marginalised sections and help them become self-reliant. “This demonstrates that our government is committed to the values and interests of our society and country, like in the past when our government had introduced 10 per cent reservation for the economically weaker sections of the society without causing stress in any section of the society,” he said.
He also said the census comes under the purview of the Centre but some states – in an apparent reference to Karnataka, Telangana and Bihar – have done caste enumeration in the name of surveys for “political reasons”.
आज़ादी के बाद हुई सभी जनगणनाओं में जातियों की गणना नहीं की गई — यह कांग्रेस पार्टी के दोहरे मापदंड और पाखंड का एक और बड़ा उदाहरण है। जो काम दशकों से टाला गया, उस पर कांग्रेस ने केवल दिखावटी राजनीति की।
2010 में तत्कालीन PM डॉ. मनमोहन सिंह ने लोकसभा में जाति जनगणना पर विचार का…
— Ashwini Vaishnaw (@AshwiniVaishnaw) April 30, 2025
Later in a post on X, Mr Vaishnaw said: “Ensuring social justice, the considerate Prime Minister Narendra Modi has taken a historic step by approving the caste census in the Union Cabinet meeting today,” the minister said in a post in Hindi on X.
Congress MP Rahul Gandhi also welcomed the Centre’s “sudden” decision to include caste enumeration in the next census after “11 years of opposing it” but said it should give a timeline for its implementation.