After Congress seeks caste census, BJP points to UPA government stance

With Congress leader Rahul Gandhi raising the pitch on caste census and party chief Mallikarjun Kharge writing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding immediate caste census, BJP sources have called out change in Congress' stance on the subject.

Congress-led UPA government had conducted caste census in 2011. However, BJP sources who refused to be named said the then government did not publish the data for three years.

The sources claimed there was a difference of opinion within the Congress-led dispensation in 2010. The group of ministers headed by Pranab Mukherjee could not reach any conclusion on the issue, sources claimed.


Several Congress leaders such as P Chidambaram, Karti Chidambaram, Priya Dutt and Satyavrat Chaturvedi had raised their reservations on different forums, the sources claimed.

In 2010, the BJP sources cited, the then union MoS for home, in a reply to a question on caste census by a JDU MP, had said in Parliament: "A decision to discourage community distinction based on caste was taken keeping in view the spirit of the secular state enshrined in the preamble of the Constitution of India."

Incidentally, Nitish Kumar-led JDU, a Congress ally in Bihar, is currently conducting a caste census in the state.

The sources also cited ex-PM Rajiv Gandhi's statement during a Lok Sabha debate on Mandal Commission in September 1990, where he compared the then PM with Britishers who divided the country on caste and religion.

The sources claimed even the first PM Jawaharlal Nehru was against reservation. They cited a June 27, 1961, letter written by him to CMs in which he criticised caste-based reservation.