New Delhi: The Congress on Friday alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah are “orchestrating” Census 2027 in a way that it could determine citizenship, and asserted that this is “blatantly illegal”.
Congress general secretary in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh attacked the government over a media report, which claimed that an enumerator at a training session explained how to coax respondents to share Aadhaar data, saying that it could be used as citizenship proof.
The report, however, said that Census officials denied giving any such instructions.
The government or the BJP did not immediately respond to the claims.
In a post on X, Ramesh said, “This is truly extraordinary and reveals how diabolical the PM-HM duo are.”
“First, they have got the ECI to determine citizenship which is brazenly illegal. Now they are orchestrating Census 2027 in a way so as to determine citizenship. This is blatantly illegal,” he said.
The Congress has also alleged that the Modi government wants to sabotage the caste census and asked why Census 2027 does not include a drop-down menu for selecting castes, despite the Centre recommending it in an affidavit to the Supreme Court in September 2021.
The opposition party has claimed that the prime minister made a “complete U-turn” on April 30, 2025 by announcing a caste census, only to now perform a “U-turn on his earlier U-turn”.
Leaders of Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi had in August written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi requesting that the questionnaire for the caste census be scrapped, and a new one be prepared to ensure accurate enumeration of castes.
The Centre has notified 40 questions for Census, with caste among them to be asked of respondents during the population enumeration phase. The Congress has attacked the BJP questioning its intent behind such a caste census.
