NEW DELHI: After PM Modi’s scathing attack on Congress for playing caste politics, the party asserted on Saturday that a nationwide caste survey and the lifting of the Supreme Court’s “arbitrary ceiling” of 50 per cent on quota for SCs, STs and OBCs are central to its vision for the country.
Congress general secretary in charge of communications, Jairam Ramesh, said that its government in Telangana will begin its caste survey on Saturday. He said 80,000 enumerators will be going door-to-door over the next few weeks, covering over 1.17 crore households across 33 districts.
This is the first time a caste-based survey is being conducted by the government in Telangana since 1931, Ramesh said.
“It is a historic, revolutionary moment — one that is a realisation of the Telangana Movement’s aspirations for the state and a fulfilment of one of the key ideals of the Constitution,” Ramesh said.
It is also, as Rahul Gandhi noted in Hyderabad earlier this week, a blueprint for the national caste survey that the INDIA coalition’s government will conduct, he said.
“We are committed to the idea of social, political and economic justice, as laid out in our Constitution,” he said.