Will The Caste Census End Muslim Reservations? Fact-Check on Caste Census | Tushar Gupta

The BJP and Congress have sharply different visions on the caste census. While Rahul Gandhi pushes for a caste census to justify breaking the 50% reservation cap and introducing religion-based quotas, the BJP supports it as a means to ensure targeted welfare for genuinely backward communities that have been historically left out. It’s important to remember that the Congress, during its rule, proposed a 4.5% sub-quota for Muslims within the 27% OBC reservation and even created a separate 4% Muslim quota in Karnataka. These moves leaned heavily toward religion-based reservation, which goes against the principle of social and educational backwardness as the sole basis for quotas. In contrast, the BJP government passed the 127th Constitutional Amendment, empowering states to identify and sub-categorize OBCs for more precise reservation benefits. This shows a clear intent: to support the most deprived, not to create divisions based on religion.