The four-hour-long meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC), held at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) headquarters on October 9, announced that it was unanimous in making “social justice” the main plank for the 2024 election.
The party’s highest decision-making body made three announcements to this effect: a government led by the Congress would conduct a caste census to find the number of other backward classes (OBCs), remove the cap of 50% reservation for OBCs, Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) through an act of Parliament, and finally, offer 33% quota to women lawmakers, including a separate quota for OBC women, at the earliest.
The CWC resolution was a natural outcome of the party’s formulation after the Bihar caste survey results were out. Noting that OBCs, SCs and STs together made up 84% of the population, former party chief Rahul Gandhi argued that “rights of a community should be proportional to its population in society”.
