New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday accused the Centre of designing the Census 2027 questionnaire with a “deliberately flawed” method on caste, saying the exercise carries a “deeper nefarious purpose”, PTI reported.
Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh alleged that the census, for the first time, is seeking “micro questions” on religion, date of birth and the place of birth of parents — details he said have never been collected in earlier censuses.
Ramesh circulated a media report on X which stated that Census 2027 seeks information on religion, date of birth and place of birth up to the village level of both father and mother.
The report also noted that in the census questionnaire, besides the open field option to declare caste, respondents can choose ‘does not want to declare caste’ and ‘no caste’.
In his post, Ramesh said, “The methodology of asking Qs on caste in Census 2027 is deliberately flawed. The micro Qs on religion, date of birth, place of birth of parents have never been asked before.”
He further added, “The census is confidential. Clearly Census 27 has a deeper nefarious purpose.”
On Tuesday, the opposition party alleged that the Modi government is trying to sabotage the caste census and questioned why Census 2027 does not include a drop-down menu for selecting castes, even though the Centre had recommended it in its affidavit to the Supreme Court in September 2021.
The party 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”.
Highlighting the Modi government’s past stance, Ramesh said an affidavit filed by the Modi dispensation on September 21, 2021 before the Supreme Court had outrightly dismissed the plea for a caste census.
“However, para 12 (d) in the affidavit says the following: ‘There was no registry of caste prepared prior to the conduct of the 2011 Census. It would have been ideal for the Registry of Castes that there should have been given a drop-down menu for selection of the castes, which could have made some consistent data available which can be relied upon’,” Ramesh had said in a post on X.
Ramesh questioned why the 2027 Census does not feature this drop-down menu, which the Modi government had recommended in its affidavit to the Supreme Court in September 2021.