Watch: Congress workers pour milk on Rahul Gandhi’s poster to celebrate caste census push

NEW DELHI: Congress workers in Hyderabad celebrated on Thursday by performing a traditional milk-pouring ceremony on posters of Rahul Gandhi and Telangana chief minister Revanth Reddy, following the Centre's decision to include caste enumeration in the upcoming national census.

The celebration comes amid an intensifying debate between the BJP-led central government and the opposition Congress over credit for the caste census initiative. Rahul Gandhi, who has been a vocal advocate for nationwide caste enumeration, has frequently described it as society's "X-ray and MRI."
The caste census announcement
After a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Political Affairs on Wednesday, Union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw announced caste census would be included in the upcoming national census.
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Explaining the government's decision to hold a caste census, Vaishnaw said, "As per Article 246 of the Constitution of India, the subject of Census is listed at number 69 in the Union List of the Seventh Schedule, making it a Union subject. While some states have conducted caste-based surveys, the approach has varied significantly. In certain cases, these surveys have been carried out in a transparent and organised manner, while in others, they have appeared to serve political motives, lacking transparency and raising doubts in society. Such inconsistent efforts have the potential to disrupt social harmony."
He added, "Taking these concerns into account, and to ensure that the social fabric remains intact, the government has decided that caste enumeration should be conducted transparently as part of the official Census, rather than through fragmented state-level surveys. This move is aimed at strengthening the social and economic foundations of the country while continuing its path of development."

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Congress and its allies, Vaishnaw alleged, always used caste census as a "political tool."
BJP on 'credit' for caste census
Hitting back at the Congress over its attempts to credit Rahul Gandhi, BJP's IT cell chief Amit Malviya recalled that in 2010, then Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, heading a Congress-led government at the Centre, had assured in the Lok Sabha that the Cabinet would consider the caste census.
Malviya said, "After this, a Cabinet Committee was formed, in which most political parties recommended a caste-based census. Despite this, the Congress government deemed it appropriate to conduct only a survey (SECC) instead of a caste census."
Union minister Kiren Rijiu, on the other hand, said that while Prime Minister Modi "takes right decisions at the right time,' the Congress can "only talk, nothing else."