Kolhapur: Congress leader and Lok Sabha's Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi raked up the issue of caste again, claiming that he never read the history of Dalits and other backward communities in school and that whatever is left is being removed from textbooks today.
Speaking at the 'Samvidhan Constitution Samman Sammelan' in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, Gandhi asserted that education is not possible without understanding history and one's own space and location. He said it was necessary to remove the current 50 per cent limit on reservation to protect the Constitution, which the Congress and the I.N.D.I.A. bloc would do in Maharashtra.
"If you see the OBC community, as I shook hands with Swapnil Kumhar who gave me an idol - with the contact itself, I understood that this hand has skill. Those hands which have the skill, people make him sit behind," he said in Kolhapur.
"It is happening 24 hours in India... I have never read the history of Dalits, backwards in school. Today, it's even opposite, the history of them that is there is being removed from books. Without history, without the understanding of own space and location, education is not possible," Gandhi further said at the event.
It is pertinent to mention that the Congress leader has frequently raised the caste issue and has expressed his opposition to the '50 per cent cap on reservation by the Supreme Court. He has also repeatedly vowed to conduct a caste census, which is also mentioned in its election manifesto for Haryana.
In August, Rahul Gandhi made headlines when he slammed the BJP-led Centre, saying he checked the “list of Miss India” but there was no mention of any woman belonging to the Dalit, tribal or OBC communities. He claimed that “90 per cent of the people are not a part of the system” which is why the Opposition is demanding the caste census.
"...I checked the list of Miss India to see if there would be any Dalit or tribal woman in it, but there were no women from Dalit, tribal or OBC. Still the media talks about dance, music, cricket, Bollywood but does not talk about farmers and labourers,” Rahul Gandhi said.
He has also demanded Prime Minister Narendra Modi to fulfill the nation's demand for a caste census immediately, otherwise he would see the next PM do it. He alleged that about 90 per cent of people including 50 per cent OBCs, 15 per cent Dalits, 8 per cent Adivasis and about 15 per cent of minorities and the economically weaker sections from the general castes were being denied everything in the country.
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