Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday renewed his caste census demand and asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi why does he call himself and OBC if rich and poor are the only castes.
“Nowadays the Prime Minister says that there are only two castes in the country – rich and poor. When there is no one backward, no Dalit and no tribal, then why did Modi ji call himself OBC for so many years?” he asked.
The Congress leader said that there will be no more diversion talks and a caste census will be conducted in order to provide social and economic justice to the deprived sections of the society.
“To bring the weak and deprived into the mainstream…there will be a count. BJP government should count its days, we will get the caste census done,” he added.
Ever since the previous grand alliance government released caste census data, Rahul Gandhi has been pushing for a similar nation-wide exercise to give rights to deprived communities in proportion to their population.
The was one of the major poll planks of the Congress party during the last year’s assembly elections.
During the campaign, Prime Minister Modi has accused the Congress party of diving the country in the name of caste and said that in his opinion, poverty is the biggest caste.
The issue of caste census was also raised by Rahul Gandhi when Nitish Kumar ditched the grand alliance and joined the BJP-led NDA last month.
The Gandhi scion has claimed that Nitish, who was the chief minister when the caste census was done in Bihar, was actually against the exercise and allowed it only under Congress and RJD pressure.