New Delhi : Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday admitted that not conducting a caste census earlier was his mistake and pledged to correct it now. The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said the caste census exercise recently carried out in Telangana would trigger a political earthquake across the country.
He acknowledged falling short in protecting the interests of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). He said that while he had always understood the issues faced by Dalits and Scheduled Tribes, he had not grasped the concerns of OBCs deeply enough in the past.
He told the gathering that it was not the Congress party but he himself who had erred in not pushing for a caste census earlier. “I regret that if I had known more about your history and issues, I would have got the caste census conducted.
He further asserted that all Congress-ruled states would carry out a caste census and conduct what he termed an “X-ray” of the population. Gandhi described the Telangana caste census as a seismic political development whose aftershocks would soon be felt nationally.
Attacking Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gandhi said that he had met him personally a few times and found him to be “all show and no substance”. He claimed that the media had “inflated” PM Modi’s image and said the prime minister was not a real problem. “You have given him too much importance. He is not a problem,” he said, telling the crowd that after meeting Modi, he realised “there is nothing”.