Jitni aabadi, utna haq… will lead to majoritarianism: Cong’s Singhvi posts, then deletes

After the Congress distanced itself from the remark, saying this was Singhvi’s personal opinion, he deleted the post and issued another statement endorsing the call for a caste census.

Singhvi’s post was particularly embarrassing for the Congress as the catchphrase of “Jitni aabadi, utna haq” was first used by Rahul Gandhi, in the midst of the Karnataka Assembly elections earlier this year.

Singhvi’s post came the same day as Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the catchphrase to attack the Congress, during his poll speeches in both Chhattisgarh and Telangana.

As Singhvi’s post became viral, Congress communications head Jairam Ramesh posted on X: “Dr Singhvi’s tweet may be a reflection of his own personal view but in no way does it reflect the position of the Indian National Congress — the essence of which is contained both in the Raipur Declaration on 26th February, 2023, and in the CWC Resolution of September 16th, 2023.” First in the Raipur Declaration, and then in the CWC resolution, the Congress had said that caste census was the need of the hour.

Asked for his comment after he deleted his post, Singhvi said: “Careless forward by a staff (member) which was deleted with a slight time lag when I came out of a felicitation function in the SC and saw it, and thereafter deleted (it) immediately.”

He also said he has always supported a caste census. Pointing out that courts have on many occasions said that decisions on reservation have to be taken on the basis of facts, he said caste census was needed for bringing out those facts.

The “Jitni aabadi, utna haq” slogan used by Rahul was essentially a rehash of BSP founder Kanshi Ram’s famous slogan “Jiski jitni sankhya bhaari, uski utni hissedari (Share as per one’s strength)”.

At the Kolar rally where he raised the slogan, Rahul suggested that reservation for SCs and STs should be proportionate to their population, and demanded removal of the Supreme Court-mandated 50% cap on quota.

Since then, Rahul has been vociferously demanding a caste census, and extended the demand to an OBC quota within the women’s reservation recently cleared by Parliament.

This is not the first time Singhvi has left the Congress in a spot. In 2010, he had appeared for Megha Distributors against a Kerala government ordinance proposing higher taxes for lottery promoters. The state Congress had objected, saying Singhvi’s move had blunted its fight against the “unlawful business” of other state lotteries in Kerala. Singhvi had finally withdrawn from the case.

A year later, he had triggered another controversy after he appeared in the Supreme Court against the ban on Endosulfan. Again, the Kerala leadership was angry, as it had taken a public position seeking a ban on the use of the pesticide, linked to health disorders. They had demanded that Singhvi be removed from the post of party spokesperson.

In 2018, it was the turn of the West Bengal Congress unit to take umbrage over Singhvi’s appearance for the Trinamool Congress government in the Supreme Court, over a BJP petition on panchayat elections in the state. That controversy had erupted less than two weeks after Singhvi was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Bengal with the support of the TMC.

At the time, the Bengal Congress had been attacking the TMC government over the violence, and the Congress had approached court seeking deployment of central forces for the panchayat elections.

Singhvi had also appeared for the TMC in the Saradha chit fund scam and the Narada sting case, both cases in which the Congress was attacking the TMC government.