The Janata Dal (United) on Sunday accused Rahul Gandhi of hypocrisy on the issue of caste census, charging him with maintaining silence when Bihar CM Nitish Kumar raised the matter in INDIA bloc meetings.
The party also asked why the Congress government in Karnataka had not released the state's caste data.
JD(U) working president and MP Sanjay Jha's attack on the Congress leader came a day after Gandhi branded the caste survey carried out by the Kumar-led government as a fake exercise at an event in Patna while pitching for a nationwide caste census.
"The aim of the caste census is not just to know about the count of various castes but their participation in the country's wealth as well. We don't want a caste survey like the Bihar government did. The exercise which the Bihar government had done was just to befool people," Gandhi had said in Patna on Saturday.
Speaking to PTI, in response to Gandhi, Jha said, "There cannot be a bigger hypocrisy than this. I was a witness to Gandhi maintaining silence while Kumar strongly and logically spoke in favour of caste census at INDIA bloc meetings in several places."
Kumar-led JD(U) was part of the INDIA bloc before he snapped ties with the opposition alliance and joined hands with the BJP.
Incidentally, Bihar's caste survey was carried out and its findings were released when the Congress was a partner in the government led by Kumar.
Jha said Kumar was the only leader who had raised the issue of caste census, and all INDIA bloc members were a witness.
Defending the caste survey in Bihar, he said Kumar was the only leader since 1931, who decided to count the population of different castes in a scientific manner to further social justice.
Taking a swipe at Gandhi, he said the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha must tell people if he believed Bihar's caste survey was inaccurate.
Slamming the Congress, he said its government in Karnataka had been sitting over the caste-wise population data in the state for several years.
Why did Gandhi not get it released, he asked.
