New Delhi, May 1 (PTI) Senior Congress leader M Veerappa Moily on Thursday said it has been the mission of the Congress party to provide social justice and equality to backward classes in the country and alleged the BJP/RSS have always opposed such reservation to them.

Moily, who has been a strong votary of reservation for the deprived sections of the society, said it is the victory of the Congress party that has led to the government agreeing to include caste enumeration in the decadal census.

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"It is the victory of the Congress party, victory of Rahul Gandhi which has now prevailed upon the NDA to do it. Because, they know the election is also coming in Bihar and backward class is a major issue there and the chief minister there is also putting pressure, because he was also the person who was there in the INDIA formation who took up this cause. I think, the Congress has always taken it as a mission," he told PTI.

"It is the mission of the Indian National Congress and that of the INDIA alliance to have reservation for OBCs by conducting this census," he asserted.

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Moily, a former Union minister, said that after PM Modi came to power, we have been insisting and the leaders of opposition in the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha, particularly Rahul Gandhi, took up this issue as a cause and brought the issue in front of the country.

"It was due in 2021. The Congress has been spearheading this as a movement. But the BJP and the RSS used to say that caste census would divide the society. What is this division... The caste is there as a naked fact," he said, claiming that even when Rajiv Gandhi spearheaded giving constitutional status to local bodies, the reservation was provided in the zila panchayat and taluk panchayats.

Asserting that no social programme can be implemented without data, Moily alleged that the BJP/RSS wanted the people and communities to fight among themselves and did not want to give reservation.

"Social and educational backwardness is an issue and unless equality is provided to all, no society can grow and come up. It was the Congress party that provided stability and social order by giving reservation to OBCs when I was the chief minister of Karnataka, while the BJP opposed it on the streets.

"The Sangh parivar wanted the hierarchy of the upper castes to continue. It was the Congress which has always upheld the social and educational equality in the country," he said.

Welcoming the Modi government's decision to hold the caste census, he said it has not given the time frame. "By mere announcement, it will not be done," he said.

Moily recalled how he as a Union minister in the then Congress government had written a detailed note to then prime minister Manmohan Singh and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi that caste census would have to be done.

"I had sent a detailed note to the prime minister for inclusion of caste enumeration in the census data. I also apprised the then Congress president and she agreed that this has to be done to enable proper implementation of various social programmes of the government. It was then that the socio-educational and economic survey was conducted under the Rural Development Ministry, as it could not be included in the census at that time," he said.

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