A day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that the BJP never opposed caste-based census, Congress leader Pramod Tiwari on Saturday said that Centre should conduct caste-based census at all-India level as it is also among the demands of Congress and INDIA bloc.

“They (Central government) should do it. The Bihar government has done. They have passed the Women’s Reservation Bill, which will be implemented ten or fifteen years later, or maybe not. A caste-based census should be done. This is what the Congress and people of INDIA alliance are saying,” the Congress Rajya Sabha MP said while speaking to ANI.

Earlier on Friday, Shah after unveiling the party’s manifesto for the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections in Raipur said the Bharatiya Janata Party never opposed caste-based census and will take a call on the same after discussions within the party.

“We don’t practice politics of appeasement for votes. We will take an appropriate decision (on caste census) after holding discussions (within the party). The BJP never opposed a caste census but decisions have to be taken after giving it a lot of thought,” Shah said while speaking to reporters in Raipur.

Meanwhile, speaking on the caste-based census at a press conference in Bhopal on Friday, BJP leader and former Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad targeted Congress leader Rahul Gandhi saying he hasn’t done the necessary homework on the issue.

“Rahul Gandhi has been speaking on the caste-based census. Congress leaders Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh are also following in his footsteps and humming the same tune. The thing about Rahul Gandhi is when someone hands on a chit, he gets stuck on a particular issue. That’s his brand of politics. Earlier, he got similar chits about Rafale, Savarkar and now Nitish Kumar has handed him the chit on caste-based census,” he said.

The BJP leader added that as many as 80 of the party MPs were from backward classes.

“The BJP has the most number of MLAs belonging to OBCs and the extremely backward category. The Prime Minister himself is an OBC. Droupadi Murmu became elected as the first Adivasi President of India. Ramnath Kovind, a Dalit, was also a former President,” the BJP leader added.

As soon as the Bihar government in October announced the findings of the inaugural caste-based census, the chorus for a nationwide exercise by the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) has grown.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has been taking potshots at the BJP over the “lack of adequate representation of OBCs” in secretary-level posts at the Centre.