Plus, the Election Commission will resume hearing in the NCP case and farmers in Punjab to hold demonstrations on the SYL canal issue.
The Congress Working Committee (CWC), the party’s top decision-making body, will meet in New Delhi today as the Assembly elections in five states draw closer and the discourse around the caste census heats up.
The CWC is expected to discuss its strategy in the poll-bound states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, and Mizoram. Unlike its primary rivals in these states, the Congress has yet to announce its candidates. In states such as Madhya Pradesh and Telangana, where it is not in power, the party has announced a slew of promises, including freebies ranging from electricity to public transport.
Caste census is also expected to be a point of discussion at the meeting. Since the women’s reservation Bill was passed in Parliament in September and Bihar released its caste survey numbers last week, the party has sharpened its demand for the inclusion of women from Other Backward Classes (OBC) in reservation for women and a nationwide exercise to count the number of castes so that social welfare policies can be designed to help those categorised as backward.
The party, especially Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, has been vocal in its pitch for “jitni aabadi, utna haq (rights proportionate to population)”, with the caste census becoming an increasingly important issue ahead of the Lok Sabha elections. Gandhi said last month that the INDIA bloc would initiate a caste census if voted to power next year and demanded that the BJP government release the data of the 2011 Socioeconomic Caste Census conducted by the then United Progressive Alliance government.
Priyanka Gandhi has promised a caste census in Chhattisgarh if the Congress retains power, Rajasthan has already set one in motion, and Karnataka is preparing to release a caste count report in November.
Among the other issues that the CWC is likely to discuss are the cases against Opposition leaders. In West Bengal, Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee has been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday in connection with an alleged teaching jobs scam. He skipped the previous summons last week to attend the party’s protest in New Delhi against the Centre.
The battle between the Nationalist Congress Party’s (NCP) factions over its poll symbol as the Election Commission resumes hearing today and the CPI(ML) Liberation will launch a nationwide protest against the BJP government’s “intimidation” of the media and the Opposition. The protest, which will continue till October 15, comes amid the ED and Delhi Police’s probes into news website NewsClick over alleged illegal funding from China.
In Tamil Nadu, the DMK-led Assembly is set to convene in Chennai amid the ongoing Cauvery river water-sharing dispute with the Congress-led Karnataka government. It will also be the first session since the AIADMK snapped ties with the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
