Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, said on Thursday (March 20, 2025) that not supporting the call for a caste census is “anti-national.”
Mr. Gandhi said that this was a conversation with Sukhadeo Thorat, who used to be the chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC). At the same time as the 98th anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar’s Mahad Satyagraha, the video of the conversation was posted on the Congress leader’s social media pages.
“Our education, health care, political, and bureaucratic systems have all been taken over.” What is really going on in India in terms of who has access to what, who runs what organisations, and who is where is important to me. That seems like a very conservative thing to do to me. “I believe that not supporting the caste census is against our country,” Mr. Gandhi said.
In an X post, he wrote, “Babasaheb Ambedkar directly fought against caste discrimination through the Mahad Satyagraha on March 20, 1927.” It wasn’t just about the right to water; it was also about fairness and respect. Caste census is a big step towards revealing the truth about this unfairness, but those who are against it don’t want the truth to come out.
The leader of the opposition told Prof. Thorat, who is on a technical group looking into the results of the Telangana government’s caste census, that the idea of the census should be taken a step further and “made more sophisticated.”
In a separate meeting, Mr. Gandhi also talked about the issues that 30,000 public sector workers were having with a group from the National Confederation of OBC Employees’ Welfare Association.
The Congress’s main election promise for 2024 was social justice and a caste census. The BJP, on the other hand, had a more complex view. The ruling party did not directly oppose the call for a social census, but they did say that such a move could cause rifts in society.
