With Bihar and Telangana having completed caste surveys within months, the Congress on Sunday questioned PM Narendra Modi over the Centre’s latest move on the caste census, alleging that the process was being delayed despite earlier assurances.Senior party leader Jairam Ramesh said the government’s shifting stand over the years had raised concerns about whether the data would be released on time.Talking about the timeline, Ramesh said the Centre had told the Lok Sabha on July 20, 2021, that it had taken a policy decision not to count caste-wise population beyond SCs and STs. This position was repeated in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court on September 21, 2021, where the government stated it had decided against conducting a caste census.He also referred to remarks made by the PM in April 2024, when the demand for a caste census was criticised during a television interview. Ramesh pointed out that on April 30, 2025, the Centre announced that caste enumeration would be included in the upcoming census, days after the Pahalgam terror attack.He further cited a March 30, 2026, press briefing by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, in which they said most results of Census-2027 would be available within the same year because the process was being carried out digitally.Against this backdrop, Ramesh said the Centre was planning to amend Article 334-A to delay the release of caste census data by a few years. “This goes against the earlier timelines and is in contrast with states like Bihar and Telangana, where similar exercises were completed in a short span,” he said.The Congress said the proposed delay raises questions about the government’s approach, especially after Parliament had backed the caste census framework in 2023. “The hidden agenda is simply not to have the caste census,” the party said.