Overview
- Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi sent a joint letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday urging withdrawal of the current caste‑census questionnaire and demanding a fresh form drafted after consultations with parties, experts and the public.
- They object to the census using an open‑ended caste field because respondents’ free‑text answers can create many variant spellings and local names that would split single castes into thousands of separate entries and make national aggregation impractical.
- The letter highlights that the questionnaire does not explicitly include a 'Backward Class' or OBC category and says that omission would prevent the census from accurately measuring the size of the OBC population for reservation and welfare planning.
- As an alternative, Kharge and Gandhi proposed a verified drop‑down list of castes based on the verified lists used in the Bihar (2022) and Telangana (2024) surveys and attached those state lists to their letter.
- Congress officials said the nationwide Population Enumeration is scheduled for February 2027, limited regional counting has already begun in parts of the country, there has been no reported formal reply from the Centre, and the party warned that the 2011 SECC problems make timely changes urgent to protect policy‑relevant results.