NEW DELHI: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday accused the Modi government of paying only “lip service” to B R Ambedkar’s legacy but doing nothing to fulfil his wishes, and claimed the BJP-RSS were “enemies” of the architect of the Constitution.Hitting out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his criticism of the Congress’ treatment of Ambedkar, Kharge cited a letter by Ambedkar in which he blamed S A Dange and V D Savarkar for his defeat in the elections of 1952.Speaking to reporters on the occasion of Ambedkar’s birth anniversary, Kharge stressed the need for a nationwide caste census as well as implementation of reservation for SCs, STs and OBCs in private educational institutions.He said the Constitution is a gift from Ambedkar to citizens as it gives them the right of social, economic and political justice.”In the AICC session, we have taken this forward. We forwarded the ideas of social justice in the AICC session,” he said.Kharge said the Congress wants to forward five issues that it is striving for and asserted that a nationwide caste census is necessary.”The Centre is making policies on the basis of the 2011 census and nothing is known about the 2021 census that was supposed to happen. Policies are made on the basis of census. We demand that along with the general census, a caste census should also be conducted so as to know how much which section has progressed,” he said.
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