The Congress, which whole-heartedly supports a caste census and a sub-quota for OBCs in the women’s reservation bill, has ensured that dissenting voices within the party are suppressed before any substantial damage is caused. Top lawyer and working committee member Abhishek Singhvi on Tuesday bore the brunt of this uncompromising attitude.

While many leaders have privately expressed anguish over Rahul Gandhi’s “jitni abadi, utna haq”, wondering whether he carries the legacy of Jawaharlal Nehru or Ram Manohar Lohia, Singhvi voiced his views on social media platform X.

He said: “Equality of opportunity is never the same as equality of outcomes. People endorsing ‘jitni abadi utna haq’ have to first completely understand the consequences of it. It will eventually culminate into majoritarianism.”

Congress communications chief Jairam Ramesh lost no time in clarifying the party position saying: “Dr Singhvi's tweet may be a reflection of his own personal view but in no way does it reflect the position of the Indian National Congress — the essence of which is contained both in the Raipur Declaration on 26th February, 2023 and in the CWC Resolution of September 16th, 2023.”

While the Congress had included the demand for a caste census in its "Call For Action" at the Raipur plenary earlier this year, the latest Congress Working Committee meeting in Hyderabad adopted a resolution supporting that demand. Rahul articulated the party’s position on caste census during the campaign for the Karnataka election and has gone so far as to regret the mistakes made in the past.

Both Rahul and party president Mallikarjun Kharge are uncompromising in their demand for a caste census that will lead to equitable representation of all castes in the socio-economic and political framework of the country.

They have consciously piloted the party’s shift, which was reflected in the decision to reserve 50 per cent seats for OBCs, SCs, STs and minorities at all levels in the party organisation.

Singhvi realised this soon and refused to accept that he had contested Rahul’s position after deleting his message. He said all the court verdicts have stressed the need for a survey and he too wanted this formalised as data is necessary for policy formulation. Rahul’s rigidity is driven by the understanding that caste can become an insurmountable hurdle to the BJP’s mobilisation on religious lines, leading to the crumbling of the Hindutva citadel.

The frustration is already visible in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s responses. Alleging that the Congress was committing a sin by trying to divide Hindu society on caste lines, Modi on Tuesday desperately tried to portray the “poor” as the community that should have the first right to the nation’s resources.

Ramesh was quick to puncture Modi’s attempt to hijack the caste discourse by using this narrative about the poor. He said: “The person who is handing over nation’s assets to his crony capitalists, who made fun of MGNREGA, who compelled the migrant workers to walk thousands of kilometres during Covid lockdown, who opposed the Food Security Act is today talking of the poor. The truth is that he is scared. He has betrayed the backward classes in the last nine years. That’s why he is running away from social justice and caste census.”

It is clear the INDIA bloc has decided to use social justice as a key strategy, apart from public welfare, to counter the BJP’s Hindutva plank and no internal dissent will be tolerated at this juncture. The party hailed the Bihar government on Tuesday, wondering why the Modi government was opposed to the welfare of OBCs. The party submitted a memorandum to President Droupadi Murmu, seeking a direction to the Prime Minister to create a sub-quota within the quota in the women’s bill.

The head of the Congress’s OBC department, Captain Ajay Yadav, said: “We would like to thank the Bihar government. Such a vast population cannot be ignored either in the social or economic context. Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi have been telling the Narendra Modi government to release the 2011 data. The RSS-BJP people tried to block the exercise in Bihar by moving courts. What are they scared of?”

He added: “We need to formulate schemes for the Extremely Backward Classes and OBCs. Without data, it is not possible. The Prime Minister describes this as a sin. He is frightened. At our Raipur plenary, we had made our position clear. Kharge had written to the Prime Minister on a caste survey.”