Congress fell short in understanding problems of OBCs, ‘opened up space’ for BJP: Rahul Gandhi

Jul 25, 2025 - 13:00

Join our WhatsApp Community to receive travel deals, free stays, and special offers!
- Join Now -

The Congress fell short in understanding the aspirations of and challenges being faced by the Other Backward Classes, which “opened up the space” for the Bharatiya Janata Party, said Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi on Thursday.

Speaking at an event at the party headquarters, Gandhi said: “People may not agree with me, but when I feel that when it came to Dalit, Adivasi, women’s issues, the Congress was on track in the last 10 to 15 years.”

“However, when it came to OBC issues, the Congress’ understanding of the challenges they were facing and the type of actions the party should have and could have taken, we fell short,” he added. “Maybe many people will say, no, you are wrong. But this is a feeling I have that we allowed, we opened the space for the BJP because we were not responsive.”

His comment followed a presentation by Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on the state’s Socio, Economic, Educational, Employment, Political and Caste survey.

Released in February, the survey report showed that Backward Classes constituted 56.3% of the population in Telangana. The population of Backward Classes in absolute numbers in Telangana is 1.9 crore.

As per the door-to-door household survey conducted in November and December, Scheduled Castes comprised 17.4% of the population and Scheduled Tribes accounted for 10.4%. Other...