Congress leader Rahul Gandhi admitted that not conducting a caste census earlier was his mistake and pledged to correct it now.
Speaking at the ‘Bhagidari Nyay Sammelan’ organised for the OBC community at Talkatora Stadium in Delhi, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said the caste census exercise recently carried out in Telangana would trigger a political earthquake across the country.
He told the gathering that it was not the Congress party but he himself who had erred in not pushing for a caste census earlier. “I regret that if I had known more about your history and issues, I would have got the caste census conducted. That is my mistake and not that of the Congress. I am going to correct that mistake now,” Gandhi said.
He further asserted that all Congress-ruled states would carry out a caste census and conduct what he termed an “X-ray” of the population.
Gandhi described the Telangana caste census as a seismic political development whose aftershocks would soon be felt nationally. He said the timing of the exercise was appropriate, as it would now be carried out with greater depth and purpose than it might have been years earlier.
Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gandhi said that he had met him personally a few times and found him to be “all show and no substance”.
He claimed that the media had “inflated” PM Modi’s image and said the prime minister was not a real problem. “You have given him too much importance. He is not a problem,” he said, telling the crowd that after meeting Modi, he realised “there is nothing”.
Gandhi appealed to OBC youth to recognise their own strength, claiming the RSS was their “biggest enemy” for attempting to erase their history. He said this erasure had been going on for thousands of years in various forms. He urged OBC youth to unite and be aware of their rights and representation.
He reiterated the Congress party’s commitment to conducting caste censuses in all states under its rule and to removing the 50 per cent cap on reservations. He said data was crucial in the 21st century and pointed out that the Telangana government now had data to show the representation of SC, ST, and OBC communities in corporate management and other sectors.
He added that while these communities were poorly represented in high-value corporate packages, they were overrepresented in low-wage jobs under MGNREGA and among gig workers.