Rahul Gandhi said on Saturday that when he gets the opportunity, he would conduct a caste census and remove the ceiling of 50 per cent on the total reservation volume.

“I am talking about a caste census because it will tell us about the population (of each caste)…. But that is not the final step,” the leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha told a gathering of civil societies in Allahabad.

“My objective is to see the wealth distribution... how much there is in the hands of the OBCs and Dalits, how much the labourers possess,” he told the event, titled Samvidhan Samman Sammelan, a congregation in honour of the Constitution.

“The second thing is to know the participation of these people (OBCs, SCs and STs) in academic institutions, the judiciary and the media.”

Rahul said that OBCs, SCs, STs and the minorities make up 90 per cent of India’s population.

Holding up a copy of the Constitution, the Congress leader said: “It says each person has a vote. This means all are equal. I am asking whether this Constitution has left any impact on our society and to what extent.

“If I see a list of Indian corporate leaders, I don’t find an OBC, a Dalit or an underprivileged. This is why a caste census (should be the) policy framework for us…. We will conduct the (caste) census and throw away the ceiling of 50 per cent.

“I have not said what we will do thereafter because the data is not in front of me. The fact is, there is a reservation policy but the Dalits of India don’t (always) get reservation. Here they (the current central government) give lateral entry in which 90 per cent of India doesn’t get any representation.”

Recently, the Narendra Modi government withdrew an advertisement for lateral hiring to bureaucratic posts — with no provision for reservations — following protests from Rahul and other Opposition leaders.

“Even in Bollywood, you will not find any representation of the 90 per cent. I have checked it. I looked at a list of Miss Indias too. There is no Dalit, tribal or OBC on this list…. The Constitution will not survive if we don’t include the 90 per cent in India’s structure,” Rahul said.

The audience chanted: “Nyay yoddha zindabad (Long live the fighter for justice).”

The Congress had said in its Lok Sabha poll manifesto that it would amend the Constitution to raise the 50 per cent cap on the total reservation volume for SCs, STs and other socially and educationally backward groups.

Rahul recalled his recent interaction with a cobbler in Sultanpur.

“I wanted to understand what he was doing. I saw unlimited skill in his hands. He has 30-40 years of experience. I took a shoe from him and tried to repair it but it was out of the question for me. It will take me one or two years to start this,” he said.

“He told me that his son used to work with him but doesn’t any more. He said only his father respected him and none else: ‘People ridicule me’.

“This cobbler told me that Modiji had called him and said he would be given training. The cobbler told him he was already trained. He told me that he went there and imparted training to the trainer.”

Rahul had stopped at the roadside shop of Ram Chait, a cobbler, on July 28 while returning from his constituency of Rae Bareli.

The Congress leader provided a peek into his philosophy of work. “Once a senior journalist came to me and said the world would remember someone who brokers peace between India and Pakistan,” Rahul said.

“What he was saying is that you should work to be remembered. I was thinking, I had put the same question to my grandmother (former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi). I asked her how people would remember her after she was dead. She said she didn’t want anybody to remember her.

“This means I have clarity. I don’t work to make people remember me. I work to work. The idea of making people remember him is that of Narendra Modiji.”

He took several potshots at the Prime Minister.

“During monarchic rule, the kings would do anything. Modiji is trying to run that model,” Rahul said.

He lifted the copy of the Constitution to his forehead and said: “But I made Modiji do this.”

He taunted Modi: “You consider yourself non-biological. You consider yourself directly connected to God.”

Rahul then went on to quote a dialogue from the Bollywood movie, PK: “Wrong number.”

In the film, a fake holy man pretends to be talking to God at a congregation when PK, the main character and an alien, cries out, “Wrong number.”