# Kharge and Rahul demand new caste census method from Modi 2026-08-25T19:25:07+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 2 independent outlets Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge and Rahul Gandhi have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, rejecting the open-ended question format for the caste count in Census 2027. They argue the method will split a single caste into thousands of names, making the data useless and failing to count OBCs. The letter demands the government scrap the current questionnaire and draft a new one after consulting political parties and experts. The leaders suggest using a drop-down menu of caste names, as done in the Bihar and Telangana caste surveys and for SC/ST enumeration. They enclosed those caste lists for reference. Congress spokesman Jairam Ramesh said this is the third letter on the issue and accused the government of sabotaging the caste census. No reply has come to the earlier two letters, sent in 2023 and May 2025. ## Indian Opinion Analysis Both sources report the same critique and demand from the Congress leadership, with no editorial framing that favours or criticises the government. The coverage is uniform straight reporting of the opposition's letter and the long-standing lack of a reply. The substantive dispute turns on method: the government's open-ended question versus the opposition's demand for a standardised list. The outcome to track is whether the government responds to the third letter or revises the census questionnaire before enumeration begins. ## Coverage Coverage: 2 sources, 2 neutral - timesofindia.indiatimes.com (neutral report) Reports opposition letter with government quote absent, no editorial slant. - thefederal.com (neutral report) Reports opposition letter and history of unanswered letters, no slant. This brief was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above, so one read covers every framing they carry. Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources. Last updated 2026-08-26T08:06:48+00:00. Tags: Census, Mallikarjun Kharge, Narendra Modi, OBC, Rahul Gandhi Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/kharge-and-rahul-tell-pm-caste-census-method-is-flawed/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/kharge-and-rahul-tell-pm-caste-census-method-is-flawed/#story-in-brief How this brief was made: an AI model read the reports linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. Stance labels are editorial classifications of how each outlet framed this story, assigned by the same model, not ratings of the outlets. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/