The Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha has placed OBC representation at the centre of his campaign for a comprehensive caste census, arguing that collecting names of castes alone will not meet the objective of social justice. He wants the exercise to establish the population of different communities and measure their presence in government, education, employment and economic decision-making.
Gandhi has also invoked the Gen Z protests that have shaken the government over education, employment and policing. He asked what might happen if OBC communities, which constitute a major section of the population, mobilised similarly to demand what he describes as their rightful share in power and resources. The remarks underline an effort by the Congress to connect its long-running caste census campaign with growing political mobilisation among younger voters.
His intervention comes as preparations for Census 2027 move into a critical phase. The government has decided that caste will be recorded during Population Enumeration, scheduled across most of the country in February 2027. The census reference date will be March 1, 2027, while Ladakh and snow-bound areas of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand will follow an earlier schedule with an October 1, 2026 reference date.
The second phase will use a 40-question schedule covering demographic and socio-economic information. Caste is to be recorded through self-declaration, expanding the national census beyond its established practice of separately identifying Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The change has intensified debate over how thousands of caste and sub-caste identities will be classified and whether the resulting database will provide a reliable foundation for decisions on representation and welfare.
Congress leaders have argued that an open-ended caste question without a clearly identifiable OBC category could complicate the assessment of the community’s aggregate population. The party’s OBC department has demanded a methodology capable of producing comparable and usable data rather than merely compiling names entered by respondents. Government authorities maintain that caste enumeration forms part of Census 2027 and that the exercise is being designed within the established census framework.
Gandhi’s argument goes beyond counting communities. He has repeatedly linked population data with what he calls “participation”, contending that demographic strength should be compared with representation in senior administration, corporate ownership, institutions, the judiciary, media and other centres of influence. He has used the disparity between the estimated size of disadvantaged communities and their presence in powerful positions to argue that formal political representation does not necessarily translate into control over resources or decision-making.
The Congress has made this approach an important component of its social-justice strategy. Gandhi has previously described a caste census as an “X-ray” of society, saying it would reveal how wealth and institutional power are distributed. He has also argued for removing the 50 per cent ceiling on reservations, a politically sensitive proposal that could require further judicial and constitutional scrutiny.
The government, however, has deprived the opposition of its earlier argument that the Centre was refusing a nationwide caste count. The decision to incorporate caste enumeration into Census 2027 has shifted the dispute from whether such a count should take place to how it should be conducted and how the resulting figures should be used.
That shift is politically significant. Congress is seeking to claim that sustained pressure forced the government to accept caste enumeration, while the BJP can point to the census programme as evidence that the demand is already being addressed. The contest is therefore increasingly centred on methodology, OBC classification and whether future policy should be tied more closely to population shares.
Gandhi’s reference to Gen Z adds another dimension. Youth-led demonstrations this year have demonstrated the capacity of digitally organised groups to move rapidly from online anger to street mobilisation. Gen Z makes up roughly a quarter of the country’s population but remains sparsely represented in legislatures, with only a handful of MPs and MLAs belonging to the generation.
