Kharge, Rahul urge PM to amend caste format in census form
Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Lok Sabha’s Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi to amend the open-ended format the ongoing census is using to collect caste data, something that means that the government could end up with hundreds of thousands of caste names
Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge and Lok Sabha Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi have urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to modify the open-ended caste format used in the ongoing census. This approach could result in a vast number of unique caste names, complicating data analysis. The lack of a pre-approved list, as seen in Bihar and Telangana, presents a significant challenge for census officials.
There are concerns that this flawed data could render the caste census futile, as it was in the 2011 count. The Congress leaders proposed that the government convene an all-party meeting, consult experts, and include a drop-down box for OBCs, similar to Telangana's 2024 survey model. They argue that without an accurate count, assessments of community status, education, employment, and social justice will be flawed.
The draft letter, which attached the Telangana questionnaire, emphasized that a single caste might be recorded under multiple names, fragmenting the data. They urged Modi to replicate the methodology used in Bihar and Telangana, which still has time to implement before the nationwide census begins in February 2027.
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