New Delhi: At the ‘Constitution Respect Summit’ on Saturday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi underlined the need to eliminate the current 50 percent cap on reservations to protect the Constitution stating that the Congress party and the ‘Bharat’ alliance are committed to passing a law to abolish this limit.
“We will ensure that the caste census law is enacted in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, and no force will be able to stop it,” he declared.
Gandhi outlined that the caste census aims to achieve two critical objectives: first, to identify the population of each community, and second, to assess their control over India’s financial system.
He expressed concern that opportunities are being restricted for 90 percent of the country’s population due to the lack of comprehensive data.
The former Congress president pointed out that India’s budget is largely determined by just 90 top IAS officers, of whom only three belong to the Other Backward Classes (OBC) community, which he claimed makes up at least 50 percent of the population.
He further noted that among these officers, only three are Dalits and one is from the Adivasi community, despite their respective populations being 15 percent and 8 percent. Gandhi accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) of opposing the caste census to prevent the truth from emerging, asserting that the history of Dalits and backward classes is omitted from school curricula.
Moreover, the scion criticized the privatization of the public sector, labeling it as ‘de-reservation’ orchestrated by the RSS and BJP over the years.
He claimed that the Agnipath Yojana is a tactic to eliminate pensions for 90 percent of armed forces personnel, stating, “The reality of the Agnipath Yojana is that it strips Indian youth of their pensions, compensation, canteen facilities, and dignity.”
