Overview
- Kharge and Rahul Gandhi sent a joint letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, August 25, 2026, demanding the current census questionnaire be cancelled and rewritten after consultations with parties and experts.
- The letter objects to an open-ended caste question that records whatever name a respondent gives, arguing this will split single communities into many different entries and make tallying populations unreliable.
- Congress proposes replacing free-text entries with a pre-verified drop-down list of caste names compiled from existing central and state lists and Anthropological Survey of India material, and attached Telangana (2024) and Bihar (2022) caste lists as models.
- Party officials say this is the third letter on the issue and that they have received no substantive response from the Prime Minister's Office, while senior Congress figures have called the current methodology a 'whitewash' and urged immediate correction.
- Census enumeration has begun in parts of the country but the nationwide count is scheduled for February 2027, and Congress warns that unless the questionnaire is changed the exercise will fail to produce clear OBC figures and weaken targeting of social‑justice policies.