Conduct national caste census to ensure social justice: Congress

New Delhi: The Congress on Monday welcomed the Bihar government’s move to release the findings of a caste census and called upon the Centre to immediately conduct a similar exercise at the national level to ensure social justice and provide a firm foundation for social empowerment programmes.

Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said the caste census of Bihar has proved that 84 per cent of people in the state are OBCs, SCs and STs and their share should be according to their population.

‘Out of 90 secretaries of the central government, only 3 are OBC, who handle only 5 per cent of India’s budget. Therefore, it is important to know the caste statistics of India...,’ Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X.

Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said the UPA government led by the Congress had conducted a census but its results were not published by the Modi government.

‘The Bihar govt has just released the results of the Caste Survey conducted by it in state.