Congress leader Jairam Ramesh.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Questioning why the 2021 Census has not been done till now, Congress on Wednesday claimed that the Narendra Modi government was not going ahead with the exercise because it wants to end the quota regime for Dalits and tribals.
Congress General Secretary (Communications) Jairam Ramesh said a Census provides data about the population of Schedule Castes and Scheduled Tribes and their social and economic information.
"It is important to know the population of tribals, because the provision of reservation in our Constitution is given according to the population. The Modi government has not yet conducted the Census which was due in 2021. There has been a delay of three years, not one year, not two years, three years and till date they have not conducted the census, which they were supposed to conduct in 2021," he said.
"Why are they not getting it done? Because they want to end reservations. They do not want us to get information about the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes through census," he told a press conference. The Census was to be conducted in 2021 but was delayed due to Covid-19 pandemic.
He also said another consequence of not conducting Census is that it leads to the omission of ten crore Indians from the ambit of National Food Security Act, which is presently known as the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana.
"If they had conducted the census in 2021, ten crore more Indians would have benefited from it. Ten crore are not getting free ration because they have not got the census conducted," he said.
Accusing Modi of spreading "lies" to divert attention from real issues in the Lok Sabha polls and challenged him to point out where in the party's manifesto is "redistribution of wealth" mentioned, he also claimed that the Prime Minister now "symbolises Asatyamev Jayate".
He claimed that the Prime Minister has stopped raising the slogan of '400 paar' and 'Modi Ki Guarantee' and resorting to false claims against Congress because the trends from the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls show that the BJP has been "wiped out" in some states while in others, its seats are going down as compared to the 2019 polls.
Insisting that Congress will not play on the pitch prepared by the BJP but "will play on the pitch of issues of unemployment and price rise", he said Modi is trying to take the agenda in another direction. "He first tried to give a communal colour to our manifesto and then talked about things that are not there in the 'Nyay Patra'. It is propaganda based on lies," he said, adding that the Prime Minister is giving publicity to the Congress manifesto.
On the controversy over allegations that Congress will implement inheritance tax, he said there was no such mention in its manifesto while reminding that the Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had abolished Estate Tax in 1985.
"However, BJP leaders such as Arun Jaitley and Jayant Sinha advocated in favour of inheritance tax. The one who says we will bring inheritance tax is wrong and in fact, it is the BJP's agenda," he added.