Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge criticized the Centre for releasing an election-inspired Household Consumption Expenditure Survey demanding an immediate census for accurate information including a caste survey. Kharge in a Hindi post on ‘X’ stated that after a decade of dormancy the Modi government has finally conducted a survey on public expenditure and income for electoral gains. He emphasized the necessity for the 2021 Census to be conducted promptly including a caste census once the Congress government is in power. Kharge questioned the discrepancy between the survey’s portrayal of a prosperous nation and the reality of rural poverty citing examples such as the meager daily expenditure of the poorest rural households and the insufficient benefits received from government schemes. He criticized the government reliance on the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey to portray low poverty rates while contradicting other reports such as the Multi Dimensional Poverty Index. Kharge accused the government of manipulating data to conceal inflation and questioned its motives for attempting to change the base year of GDP calculation. He also raised concerns about the ambiguity surrounding the naming of the survey round suggesting deliberate manipulation to obscure data tampering.