Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s ministry rewrote the rulebook for the 2027 population count on Friday. The amended Census Rules, 1990, explicitly allow state governments and Union territories to appoint "any person" as enumerators. This broadens the previous scope, which typically restricted the role to government employees and specific private-sector staff.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh struck back on Saturday, labeling the amendment "mischief." "This will most certainly further contaminate an already subverted Census," Ramesh wrote on X. He linked the move to an RSS training camp held in Belgaum, Karnataka, from July 10 to 12. The camp, he claimed, focused solely on preparing cadres for the 2027 exercise.
The legal backdrop complicates the narrative. High courts across India have recently granted relief to teachers in aided and unaided private schools, barring their forced enrollment as census enumerators. The new gazette notification, issued by Registrar General of India Mrityunjay Kumar Narayan, circumvents these judicial restrictions by expanding the definition of eligible staff to include "clerks or any official of... unaided private bodies" and, crucially, "any person as the state government... may consider suitable."
Ramesh also targeted the Union Home Ministry’s High-Level Committee on Demographic Changes, established on May 26, 2026. He alleged the committee’s members are predominantly from the RSS ecosystem, predicting its inputs would skew the census methodology. "There are no limits to the diabolical designs of the PM-HM duo," he stated, directly accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah.
The Centre has not yet issued a formal response to Ramesh’s allegations. However, the amendment remains in force, setting the stage for further legal challenges from opposition parties and teacher unions ahead of the next census cycle.