Reacting to the Centre’s decision to conduct a nationwide caste census, Shiv Sena (UBT) leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut on Wednesday credited Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for the move, saying the demand has been his long-standing agenda.

“Rahul Gandhi has been talking about the caste census for the last ten years. The cabinet has taken this decision, but the credit goes to Rahul Gandhi. The government is of Modi, but the system is of Rahul Gandhi and it will continue,” Raut told reporters in Mumbai.

He further claimed that the Modi government was compelled to act under pressure and accused it of using the caste census announcement as a tactic to shift public focus away from the recent terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam, where 26 people were killed.

“The government had to bow down... The kind of atmosphere that has been created in the whole country after the Pahalgam attack, people have started asking questions to Modi ji, so a hasty decision was taken to divert attention from that,” he added.

The Union Cabinet's approval of the caste census marks a significant shift in the Centre’s approach, after previously stating that it would not conduct a caste-based headcount beyond Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Opposition parties, particularly the Congress and allies in the INDIA bloc, have been consistently demanding a full caste census to ensure equitable resource distribution based on population data.