The Centre has amended the Census Rules, 1990, specifying who can be appointed as enumerators, including private-school teachers and staff from banks and companies. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh questioned the move on Saturday, alleging that it would benefit RSS and BJP workers.
The October 16 notification, issued by the Office of the Registrar General of India under the Union home ministry, replaces the entry on enumerators in Rule 3.
It lists the following categories:
“(i) Teachers of any educational institution of the Government, local authority, aided or unaided private bodies, societies or trusts.
“(ii) Clerks or any official of the Central Government, State Government, local authority or establishment (including public sector undertakings, statutory bodies, banks, companies, institutions, societies and trusts).
“(iii) Any person, as the State Government or the Union territory Administration may consider suitable, to perform the duties as an Enumerator.”
The notification says the Census (Amendment) Rules, 2026, “shall come into force from the date of their publication in the Official Gazette”.
Sharing the notification on X, Ramesh wrote: “The Modi Govt has now expanded the list of eligible enumerators for Census 2027. There is much mischief behind it.”
“It is clear this is a Rozgar Guarantee Yojana for thousands of RSS/BJP workers. This will most certainly further contaminate an already subverted Census. Another institution is being destroyed. Like SIR, the Census will also be dangerously doctored,” he alleged.
Responding to Ramesh’s post, activist Yogendra Yadav wrote: “This is a diabolical design. Must be resisted.”
The earlier rules already listed “Teachers, Clerks or any official or any person” as eligible enumerators. The amendment sets out the categories in greater detail.
According to a PTI report, the changes followed high court orders staying the requisition of private-school staff for census duties.
Ramesh linked the notification to an RSS meeting in Karnataka and the Union home ministry’s High-Level Committee on Demographic Changes.
“During July 10–12, 2026, the RSS held a big training camp in Belgaum for its cadres on the single-point agenda of Census 2027,” he alleged.
He also questioned the composition of the demographic changes committee and its invitation for public input.
“The High-Level Committee on Demographic Changes set up by the Union Home Ministry on May 26, 2026 has just asked for inputs from the public, including Indian and foreign organisations, on demographic changes in the country. The only thing high level of this committee is the affiliation of its members to the RSS ecosystem. So we know where these inputs will come from,” he alleged.
“The Census Notification of October 16, 2026 has to be seen in light of the RSS training camp of July 10–12, 2026 and the Demographic Change Committee’s call for inputs on October 14, 2026.”
“There are no limits to the diabolical designs of the PM-HM duo,” Ramesh concluded.
(With inputs from PTI)