Mallikarjun Kharge rebuts PM on caste census, says it’ll help backward classes
Mallikarjun Kharge said the BJP and PM Modi’s “game will not survive for long” because the people have been aware
RAIPUR: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday rejected Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s criticism of the Congress’s demand for a nationwide caste census, saying his party wanted the headcount of backward classes as this will provide details about their status and help in taking welfare measures for them.
“We want a census of backward classes as it will reveal information on how many of them are extremely backward, how many of them are literate, who are economically backward. The census will disclose all these details and we would be able to take measures in their interest,” Kharge told a Chhattisgarh government event, ‘Bharose ka Sammelan’, in Kodtarari village of Raigarh district.
“For all these things, we have been demanding that there should be a census of the backward classes and poor people,” he said.
“But Modi sahab says the opposition wants to divide the country and snatch the rights of women. Modi ji, now people have become aware and your game will not survive for long,” the Congress leader said.
He also accused the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh of an “anti-women ideology”, and said if the BJP was concerned about women, backward classes and the poor, it should right away implement the reservation for women in state and national elections.
“They (BJP) say the Congress opposed the women’s reservation bill. Who brought amendments (to the Constitution) and ensured reservation for women in panchayat bodies? It was the Congress…Be it the Jan Sangh, BJP or RSS, their ideology has been “anti-women”, Kharge alleged.
State BJP spokesperson Sacchinand Upasane said that the Congress party had always been anti-Hindu and now they wanted to create a divide.
“In the last 60 years, they have never bothered about backward castes and now they are interested in their welfare? They want to divide this country,” said Upasane.
