Bemetara (Chhattisgarh), Nov 15: Reiterating his party’s demand for a caste census, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday said the day the Other Backward Classes, Dalits and tribals learn about their actual population, the “country will change forever.” Speaking at a rally in Chhattisgarh’s Bemetara district ahead of the second phase of assembly elections on November 17, he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of not taking a clear stand on the issue.
“Modi ji flies in an aircraft worth Rs 12,000 crore and wears new clothes every day. He was elected using the word OBC (on the promise of acting in their interest), and when the time comes to give rights to the OBCs, he says there is no OBC and the poor are the only caste in India. “We will find out how many OBCs are there. Whether Narendra Modi carries out a caste census or not, the day the Congress comes to power again in Chhattisgarh, a caste survey will start here….the day our government comes to power in Delhi, the first signature will be on the (order directing) caste census,” he added.
It will be a historic decision, the Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said.
“The day the OBCs, Dalits and tribals of this country come to know about their actual population and true strength, this country will change forever. This will be the biggest revolutionary decision after Independence,” he added.
While Congress governments waive the loans of farmers, the BJP-led Union government waives the loans of “big industrialists like Adani”, Gandhi alleged.
“Wherever we have a government, be it Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan or Himachal Pradesh, I told all the chief ministers that the Congress government will put into the bank accounts of farmers, labourers, mothers and sisters the same amount of money that the BJP gives to billionaires and big contractors,” he said.
The economy is run by farmers, labourers, small shopkeepers and the youth, Gandhi said, adding that if the “money goes into Adani ji’s pocket, Adani ji spends it in America” but if it goes to a farmer, it is spent within the village, and thus strengthens the rural economy.”
Wednesday is the last day of campaigning for the second phase of elections for 70 assembly seats in Chhattisgarh. The first phase covering 20 seats was held on November 7.
In another election rally in the Berasia constituency in Bhopal district of neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday credited vision and policies of governments headed by his party over decades for big dams, ushering in green and white revolutions, setting up premier engineering and medical institutions in the country.
Kharge was responding to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s repeated statements asking what the Congress had done for the country during its long rule after independence, while addressing an election rally in the Berasia constituency in Bhopal district ahead of the November 17 assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh. (PTI)
