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Rahul Gandhi vows caste census in Congress-ruled states

Holding up a copy of the Constitution as he spoke, Gandhi said the statute speaks of social empowerment and carries the ideas espoused by B R Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, Lord Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi.

Rahul Gandhi vows caste census in Cong-ruled statesRahul Gandhi in New Delhi on Tuesday. (Express photo by Anil Sharma)
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ADDRESSING the Congress’s ‘Samvidhan Rakshak Abhiyaan’ event at Talkatora Stadium here to mark Constitution Day Tuesday, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi said he could guarantee that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had not read the statute. “If PM Modi had read this book, he would not do what he does daily,” Gandhi said.

Holding up a copy of the Constitution as he spoke, Gandhi said the statute speaks of social empowerment and carries the ideas espoused by B R Ambedkar, Jyotiba Phule, Lord Buddha and Mahatma Gandhi.

“Is there (Veer) Savarkar’s voice in this book? Is it written in this book that there should be violence, that a person should be killed or intimidated? Is it written in it that a government should be run on falsehood?” Gandhi said, calling the Constitution “a book of truth and non-violence” and reflecting “the thinking of India for the past thousands of years”.

He went on to speak at length on “the need for a caste census” and promised that Congress-ruled states would hold it.

During his speech, Gandhi said that in reality, the entire system in the country was skewed against the Dalits, backwards and tribals, and that a caste census was a step towards changing that. The day caste census data comes into the hands of a Congress government, the whole paradigm of development will change, he said.

The BJP did not want a caste census as it wanted “only 4-5% of people to control the entire country”, the Congress leader added.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, who also spoke at the event, said the Lok Sabha election results were a success of the Congress’s campaign centered around the Constitution, led by Gandhi. The SCs, STs, backwards, minorities and intellectuals had all come forward to “save democracy” in the elections, Kharge said.

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Questioning the elaborate celebration of Constitution Day, including year-long festivities to mark 75 years of its adoption, by a government led by the BJP, Kharge said “those who are weakening the Constitution today, their ancestors were informers of the British police”. The Congress chief also alleged that the Adani Group had played a major role in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, in which the Maha Vikas Aghadi was wiped out. “He (Adani) has accumulated so much wealth – rather, it is better to say that Modi ji has given him so much wealth – that he is not able to digest it and is distributing it in the elections on the BJP’s behalf,” Kharge said.

Lalmani is an Assistant Editor with The Indian Express, and is based in New Delhi. He covers politics of the Hindi Heartland, tracking BJP, Samajwadi Party, BSP, RLD and other parties based in UP, Bihar and Uttarakhand. Covered the Lok Sabha elections of 2014, 2019 and 2024; Assembly polls of 2012, 2017 and 2022 in UP along with government affairs in UP and Uttarakhand. ... Read More

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