Overview

• Athawale renewed his long-standing demand for caste-based quotas in private enterprises, citing recent privatizations of public companies such as Balco.
• He hailed the government’s plan to include caste enumeration in the next population census as a first step since 1931 to gather data for targeted interventions.
• The minister rejected Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s assertion that the census decision stemmed from his pressure, saying it was already on the government’s agenda.
• Responding to claims about RSS preferences, he affirmed that the BJP upholds the Constitution above ancient legal texts like Manusmriti.
• Asked about calls to revisit the terms “socialist” and “secular” in the Constitution’s Preamble, Athawale noted these concepts were later amendments to the original document.