In a fairly surprising move, the Central government has decided to include caste enumeration in the forthcoming census exercise. Union minister of electronics and information technology Ashwini Vaishnaw announced the committee on political affairs’ decision on Wednesday, April 30.

Vaihnaw said that the census comes under the purview of the Centre, but some states have done caste enumeration in the name of surveys. Alleging that the states ruled by Opposition parties have done caste surveys for political reasons, the minister said it is the Modi government’s resolve to transparently include caste enumeration in the forthcoming pan-India census exercise.

The census exercise was to commence in April 2020, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

(This is a breaking story. More details will be added as they emerge.)