New Delhi: The Congress on Monday accused the Modi government of deliberately omitting the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category from the caste census as part of a deep conspiracy.
The party's OBC department head Anil Jaihind said the absence of a separate column for OBCs in the census questionnaire violates the principles of social justice and prevents the true population figures of the OBC community from being recorded.
Jaihind said that instead of conducting the caste census scientifically and transparently, the government is adopting a process that could exclude OBCs from official statistics.
A 'Manuvadi' (caste-hierarchical) system is operating in reality, he told reporters.
Citing the notification issued on August 14, Jaihind pointed out the absence of a column to list the OBC category in Question 10 of the questionnaire.
Congress leader Subhashini Sharad Yadav said the census must accurately identify castes, as the nature and manifestation of castes vary across different regions of the country.
