‘Worthless, superfluous and diabolica’: Jairam Ramesh slams Centre over Census 2027

New Delhi: The Congress party alleged Thursday that Census 2027 has become "totally perverted," claiming its underlying intent is "very dubious" and its content "worthless, superfluous and diabolical".

Congress general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh launched the attack on the government following media reports that the administration's decision to bring forward the Population Enumeration phase of Census 2027 in four election-bound states, alongside introducing several new questions in the Census schedule, had led former Census officials to express concern regarding data quality and potential linkages between the Census, the National Population Register (NPR), and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Posting on social media platform X, Ramesh stated, "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 had previously alleged on Wednesday that the government's choice to employ open-ended questions rather than a drop-down menu in the current caste census format represents a "very serious flaw," asserting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi appears to want the entire exercise to "fail".

Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi jointly dispatched a letter to Prime Minister Modi concerning the caste census, outlining the party's primary demand for the enumeration to be carried out properly.

Both senior figures articulated firm objections regarding the current methodology of the caste census in the letter dated 20 August.

PTI