Today’s meeting of the Congress Working Committee will discuss polling tactics and the caste census

With the announcement of Assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Mizoram imminent, the Congress Working Committee (CWC) meeting here on Monday is expected to be dominated by a caste census and polling techniques.

The top party brass, including Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge, former party leaders Sonia and Rahul Gandhi, the chief ministers of every state that the party currently controls, and they will hold in-depth discussions about election preparation and narratives in each of the states that will soon hold elections. They will also make a strong case for a national caste census and discuss its implications.

1) There are reservations inside the Congress about how the party has expressed its need for the caste census, especially in light of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent accusation that the grand old party is aiming to stoke division among Hindus by promoting the Other Backward Classes (OBC).

2) Abhishek Singhvi, a frequent member of the CWC and a spokesman for the Congress, expressed worry lately over Rahul Gandhi’s “jitni abaadi, utna haq” (rights proportional to population) slogan, claiming that it amounted to an endorsement of majoritarianism. Although Singhvi promptly removed his contentious post on X after the Congress rejected his comments, some party members are still concerned about how the politically-charged push for the caste census was expressed.

3) In the meantime, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is currently in power at the federal level, has intensified its criticism of the Congress, claiming that the party has never supported a caste census because the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi opposed the Mandal Commission in Parliament. In order to oppose the Hindutva agenda of the BJP, the Congress has chosen a principled stance by pushing for the caste census.

4)On Saturday, the Congress-controlled state of Rajasthan announced instructions to conduct a caste census in response to the results of the state’s caste census being made public in Bihar. The Congress has said that, if re-elected to power in Chhattisgarh, it would undertake a caste census. Karnataka, which is governed by the Congress party, has already announced the census and will probably release the findings later this year.

5) Setting the party’s strategy in the five states with upcoming elections will be on the agenda of the CWC meeting on Monday. In addition to attempting to unseat the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) in Telangana, and Mizo National Front (MNF) in Mizoram, the Congress wants to retain its administrations in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan.

6) The CWC meeting takes place at a time when certain opposition figures are coming under fire from the government, with Sanjay Singh of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) being the most recent in a string of arrests related to the Delhi excise policy case. The chairman of the Congress’ farmers wing, Sukhpal Khaira, was arrested most recently in a drug-related case, and the party has decried Singh’s detention while also drawing attention to similar actions taken against its officials in Punjab by the AAP government there.

7)The senior Congress decision-making committee met little over three weeks ago to develop a plan for the Assembly elections in the five states and the 2024 Lok Sabha election. That meeting was held in Hyderabad on September 16.

Along with the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leaders in the five election-bound states, the chief ministers of Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, and Himachal Pradesh will attend the CWC meeting. There are 39 regular members, 32 permanent invitees, and 13 special invitees in the CWC, including 15 women and a number of fresh faces.