New Delhi: Accusing the Centre of subverting the Census 2027 process, the Congress on Thursday said the exercise has been “totally perverted”, casting doubt on its objective and objecting to a raft of new questions slated for the population count.
Congress general secretary (communications) Jairam Ramesh made the comments after media reports highlighted the government’s decision to bring forward the Population Enumeration stage in four states facing assembly polls, alongside the insertion of several fresh queries in the Census form—moves that have alarmed some ex-Census officials.
Those officials have questioned the reliability of the data likely to be gathered and warned of possible linkages between the Census, the National Population Register (NPR) and, ultimately, the National Register of Citizens (NRC), as reported by The New Indian Express.
Posting on X, Ramesh said: “Census 2027 has got totally perverted.” He added: “Its intent is very dubious & content at times worthless (like the caste Q), at times superfluous since data sets already exist (like vaccination) and at times diabolical (like names, religion, place of birth, etc of a person’s parents).”
A day earlier, the party had also criticised the choice of open-ended questions rather than a drop-down menu for recording caste in the ongoing caste census exercise. Calling it a “very serious flaw”, the Congress alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi intended for the caste census to “fail”.
In a joint letter dated August 20 to Modi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Lok Sabha Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi sought that the caste census be carried out in the “right manner”. They flagged objections to the present methodology and restated the party’s core demand for structural changes to the exercise.
