Congress Working Committee Meeting : Caste Census And Election Poll To Be On Table

With the Assembly election announcement of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram is in the pipeline, the Congress Working Committee meeting on Monday is believed to accommodate poll strategies and caste census on the table.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi”s “accusation” on Congress party regarding the party”s attempt on caste census as an attempt to divide the Hindus by exerting “push” to the  Other Backward Class (OBC), there is slight in-house “concern” within the Congress party.

A post on the social media platform X (formerly twitter) by Abhishek Singvi, party spokesperson, made it clear about the alleged “concerns” of a few party members. He argued the opposition leader Rahul Gandhi”s slogan, “jitni abaadi, utna haq” (rights are directly propotional to population), as an advertisement for “majoritarianism”. Though later Mr. Singhvi has deleted the post, it shows the different opinions within the party. Some of the party members view the caste senses as “politically sensitive”.

It is said that the Congress party is rooting for caste census as an attempt to counter the Bharatiya Janatha Party”s “hindutva agendas”. After accentuating the party”s aim to move forward with the caste census in Bihar and Rajasthan, the Congress party has announced caste census will be held in Chhattisgarh too.  Karnataka has already announced the caste senses and is expected to yield a result by the end of this year.

The Congress party is aiming to get back on “ruling” in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The party also aims at taking the “power” in Mizoram, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh. These states are ruled by Mizo National Front (MNF), Bharath Rashtra Samiti (BRS), and Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) respectively. The Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting will be mainly focused on the elections on these states along with the caste census. The CWC was recently reconstituted to plan out strategies and methods to approach the upcoming Lok Sabha election.

The Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, former party chief Sonia Gandhi, Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leaders and Chief Ministers from all Congress led states will attend the CWC meeting.