HUBBALLI: While hitting out at the BJP for its remarks that the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was against caste-based reservation, All-India Congress Committee (AICC) president Mallikarjun Kharge said that the RSS and Jan Sangh have opposed reservation and social justice since their inception.
“If we are against caste census, why did we write to the Centre (seeking a caste census) two years ago? BJP is creating confusion among people by pretending that only they care about people’s welfare. But it is bogus. They (BJP) are doing it for politics,” he said.
Kharge said that the Centre had not agreed to a caste census when he had written to PM Narendra Modi on April 16, 2023, asking for a caste census along with the national census. “Now the Union Government has taken the decision to carry out a caste census. This is a good idea which we fully support,” Kharge said.
“Ambedkar brought the Hindu Code Bill, but everyone made a fuss about it then... Nehru had supported it. We work with ideology, but the BJP is basically against the idea of reservation. They (Modi government) should do the census along with the social, economic, and educational status of the communities,” Kharge said.