Congress accuses govt of ‘distorting’ Census 2027

New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday alleged that Census 2027 has gotten “totally perverted” with its intent “very dubious” and content at times “worthless, superfluous and diabolical”.

Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh’s attack on the government came over a media report which stated that the government’s decision to advance the Population Enumeration phase of Census 2027 in four poll-bound States, coupled with the introduction of several new questions in the Census schedule, has prompted some former Census officials to raise concerns regarding the quality of data that is to be collected and the potential links between the Census, the National Population Register and, ultimately, the National Register of Citizens.

In his post, Ramesh said, “Census 2027 has got totally perverted.”

“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),” the Congress leader said.

The Congress on Wednesday had alleged that the government’s decision to use open-ended questions instead of a drop-down list in the current format of the caste census is a “very serious flaw”, and said it seems that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants the entire process to “fail”.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi jointly wrote a letter to Prime Minister Modi on the caste census issue, along with the party’s key demand to conduct the caste census in the right manner.

Both senior leaders had expressed serious objections to the current process of the caste census in the letter dated August 20.