Women's Reservation Bill will take 10 yrs to be implemented, we want the govt to do it now, says Rahul Gandhi

New Delhi: While a special Parliament session has been convened by the government and the long pending Women's Reservation Bill was passed in a late night session on September 22, 2023, in a special press briefing by Rahul Gnadhi, former Congress President, reacting to the Bill said, 'if the govt has real intentions to empower women, government should remove the two clauses on census and delimitation from Women's Reservation Bill and should give women their due participation. It should also release the data from the last caste census done by the UPA government and should now conduct a new Caste census.'

He said, 'We have 100% regret that we didn’t include OBCs in the Women’s Reservation Bill that was passed when we were in government.'

Gandhi said, with the caveat of first census and then delimiation the bill will take 10 years from now to see the light of the day. He said, 'So, this is a diversionary tactic, it's a way of making everyone’s attention move away from census.' Elaborating on it he said, 'Only three officers in the government of India, secretary level are OBC who control five percent of the budget. OBCs, Dalits, Tribals all put together, control six percent of the budget.'

Rahul Gandhi said, 'We will get caste census done as soon as we form the government. The country will get to know what is the percentage of OBCs, Dalits and tribals. They will get participation in running the country. This is not a small process; it will take time but it will be done.'

The last census was held in 2011, whilst the next was to be held in 2021 before it was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India. The next census will be held after 2024 general election. Historically, there has been a long time between collection of data and dissemination of data.

The last caste census was conducted in 1931. All caste data are projected on its basis. It became the basis for quota caps under the Mandal formula. Caste data were collected for the 2011 census but the data were never made public.