Shivpuri, Mar 4 (IANS): On Day 51 of the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra on Monday, senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi made a strong pitch for caste census and elaborated how this will bring social and economic justice to the people of the country.

Addressing a large public rally in Madhya Pradesh’s Shivpuri on Monday, Rahul Gandhi said, “If the INDIA bloc forms the next government at Centre, caste census will prove to be a revolutionary step in providing social and economic justice to the people of the country.”

Rahul Gandhi also hit out hard at the Narendra Modi dispensation and accused it of ignoring the unprivileged class while extending favours to a select class of people by ‘diverting’ the nation’s wealth and resources towards them.

The Congress leader also claimed that the massive infrastructure created by the past Congress governments under the public sector provided tens of thousands of jobs, but Prime Minister Narendra Modi handed them over to his select personal friends, thus blocking all routes of employment for the poor and the needy.

Further berating the government over the ‘ill-devised’ Agnipath scheme, he said the government opened the doors for ‘part-time recruitment’ of youth, but refused to provide them either post-retirement benefits or the honour of having served the nation.

“The youth after joining the armed forces will be sent back just after four years. Also, they will not get any benefits after retirement. Even if they lay down their lives in the service of the country, they will neither be granted martyr status, nor will their families be entitled to any benefits,” Rahul said.

Further batting for equal share of all in nation’s resources, the former Congress President said the caste census, if backed with economic survey, will not only reveal the actual number of people belonging to different castes and groups such as the backwards, the Dalits, the tribals, the minorities and the poor among the general castes, but will also show who controls how much resources.

He said that backwards, Dalits, Adivasis and minorities and the poor from the general castes constitute about 90 per cent of the country’s population, but their participation and representation in the decision-making process remain almost nil.

“This injustice can be corrected only after a complete social and economic x-ray of the country through caste census,” Rahul Gandhi claimed.