New Delhi, May 04 :
The Congress is upbeat over the Centre announcing a caste census, and credited this to LoP Rahul Gandhi’s pressure. The grand old party has also decided to launch a nationwide campaign throughout May to flag Rahul Gandhi’s role in pushing the caste census demand and the BJP’s resistance to the idea.
The AICC has directed all the state units to immediately start the caste census campaign and monitor the drive through state-level control rooms and district-level observers.
Further, the state units have been asked to hold corner meetings across the villages so that the Congress’s role in pursuing the caste census issue and the saffron party’s opposition to the idea is spread among the locals.
Besides, state leaders have been asked to hold pressers on the issue and a similar drive will be launched on social media. The AICC will monitor the entire month-long campaign and has sought feedback from the respective state in charge.
“The role of Rahul Gandhi who consistently made the demand for a caste census over the past years certainly needs to be highlighted. It was not merely an issue with him, he studied the topic and gathered sufficient data points to back his demand like the low share of backwards in bureaucracy, private sector and even in media. At regular intervals, he used to put out that data in the public domain through speeches and interactions. That led to the idea getting popular among the targeted sections who then started talking about it. This put pressure on the Centre to announce the caste census although the BJP used to ridicule Rahul Gandhi and resisted the idea,” AICC national coordinator for SC, ST, OBC and Minorities K Raju told ETV Bharat.
“The nationwide campaign is to create mass awareness over the issue which will serve the larger objective of policy framing once relevant data is available. The Congress chief has asked all the states in charge to roll out the campaign, monitor it and give feedback reports,” he said.
The directive comes two days after the Congress Working Committee passed a resolution giving credit for the Centre’s announcement to Rahul Gandhi. The campaign on caste census will now be dovetailed with the ‘Save Constitution’ drive the Congress had scheduled for May earlier.
“It would be right to combine the caste census and save constitution campaigns as the two issues were interconnected with the larger social justice plank of Rahul Gandhi,” said Raju.
According to AICC functionary Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka, the saffron party may try to take political mileage of the Centre’s announcement but it was unlikely to happen.
“During the nationwide campaign, the people will be told about our Telangana government which conducted a caste census and is also passing on the benefits to the residents. Our government in Karnataka has also done a similar survey and is in the process of finalizing it. We already have a successful plan to showcase whereas the BJP is yet to spell out the details of its proposal. I don’t think the saffron party will get any mileage from the announcement because the people will remember who fought for the idea all these years and who opposed the same. Our campaign will force the government to take the caste census announcement forward and carry out the exercise which is our main objective,” Ulaka told ETV Bharat.
