Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Sunday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding an up-to-date caste census, saying that the data was needed for meaningful social justice and empowerment programmes.

Kharge said that it is the Union government’s responsibility to carry out such an exercise.

“You are aware that for the first time the UPA Government conducted a Socio Economic and Caste Census [SECC] during 2011-12 covering some 25 crore households,” the Congress chief said. “For a number of reasons, however, the caste data could not get published even though Congress and other MPs demanded its release after your government came to power in May 2014.”

The Rajya Sabha MP added that the regular decennial Census was to be carried out in 2021 but the Centre has failed to carry out the exercise till now. “We demand that it be done immediately and that a comprehensive Caste Census be made its integral part,” Kharge said.

Kharge’s letter to Modi comes a day after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi asked the Centre to release the 2011 caste-based census data in the public domain while addressing a rally in Katnataka’s Kolar.

“Modiji, if you talk about OBCs, let us talk about them,” he said. “The biggest question is what is the population of each community in the country.”

Gandhi said that if the Centre did not make data from the 2011 caste-based census, it would constitute an insult to Other Backward Classes.

India had last conducted an exercise to count the population of all caste groups in 1931. In independent India, census reports have published data noting the population of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes but not other caste groups.