AURANGABAD: Lok Sabha chief of opposition Rahul Gandhi stirred controversy Tuesday by claiming “10% of the nation’s inhabitants” controls the Military, feedback seen as an allusion to higher castes. “…Solely 10% of the nation’s inhabitants get alternatives in company sectors, paperwork, and judiciary... even the Military is beneath their management. The remaining 90% – backward courses, Dalits, STs, and minorities – are nowhere to be seen,” Rahul mentioned whereas campaigning in Bihar’s Aurangabad and Kutumba forward of the primary section of meeting polls on Thursday.The feedback echoed calls by Congress’s Rahul and different opposition events over the previous yr for a nationwide caste census however this was the primary time he had referred to the Military whereas highlighting such calls for.Rahul asserted that such a census would determine “the 90% Indians sitting exterior the system” and assist shield their rights and constitutional ensures. “If 90% folks haven’t got participatory rights, the Structure cannot be protected. We would like the information. What number of Dalits, OBCs, ladies, minorities… are there. We are attempting to guard the Structure by means of this demand for a caste census,” Rahul mentioned.Rahul has made controversial feedback concerning the Military earlier, drawing authorized censure. He was rapped by Supreme Courtroom in Aug for claiming throughout his ‘Bharat Jodo Yatra’ over two years in the past that “Chinese language troops are thrashing Indian troopers in Arunachal Pradesh”. The remark was made in reference to the face-off with China in Arunachal’s Tawang in Dec 2022. Earlier in Might, Allahabad HC had rejected a plea by Rahul difficult summons in a case, saying freedom of speech did not embrace the proper to “defame” the Military. On Bihar ballot path Tuesday, Rahul lashed out at what he described as PM Narendra Modi’s “digital distractions” as he accused Centre of utilizing social media to divert youths from the true problems with unemployment and inequality.“They gave low cost information as a substitute of jobs. They advised youth to make reels as a substitute of asking questions. Watching and making reels has develop into an habit – a distraction to maintain younger folks silent. The cash goes to industrialists. Youths are left with leisure as a drug,” Rahul mentioned.He accused CM Nitish Kumar of getting “decreased Bihar’s youth to changing into nation’s labourers”, saying the CM had did not create alternatives for the younger. “Bihar, as soon as residence to the world-renowned Nalanda College, has now been decreased to a land the place younger persons are pressured emigrate throughout India for menial work. Nitish has made the sons of this soil labourers, not builders of Bihar’s future,” Rahul mentioned.