Gandhi shared the written questions he submitted in Parliament, along with the responses provided by the Home Ministry. He alleged that the government had neither held public consultations nor drawn from state-level caste surveys that have already been conducted. “No concrete framework, no time-bound plan, no discussion in Parliament, and no dialogue with the public,” he wrote, calling the Centre’s approach “an open betrayal of majority communities.”
The Ministry of Home Affairs, through Minister of State Nityanand Rai, outlined the proposed schedule for Census 2027, which will be carried out in two phases. House listing is planned for any 30-day window between April and September 2026, while the population enumeration is scheduled for February 2027. Snow-bound regions in Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand will be covered earlier, in September 2026.
Rai clarified that census questionnaires are developed after consultations with ministries, experts, and data users, followed by small-scale testing. Finalised forms are notified in the Gazette under the Census Act. He added that experiences from past censuses inform each new exercise.
The Centre has already announced that the upcoming census will, for the first time since independence, include comprehensive caste data. The two-phase exercise was confirmed earlier this year, with official notification expected in June 2025.
Opposition parties, particularly the Congress, have long pushed for a caste census, arguing that updated data is critical for welfare planning and representation. Gandhi has raised the demand repeatedly since 2023, framing it as essential for social justice.
