Congress slams RSS over 'national population policy' suggestion

The Congress Party on Sunday criticised the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) for suggesting the Centre to 're-formulate' the national population policy, and said that they have no authority to challenge the government's decision.

"First of all who is RSS to question the government? This proves the point we are making that the government at the Centre is being run by the RSS. It is true that the government should have a policy for population but it is unfortunate to form it on the basis of religion," Congress leader Rashid Alvi told ANI.

"We have a healthy democracy and it is very unfortunate and condemnable to ask questions over national population policy, just by seeing the Muslim and Hindu population. There should be a dialogue over population as a whole but not with respect to different religions. I completely criticise what the RSS is saying," he added.

With the latest census data showing rise in Muslim population, the RSS has asked the Centre to re-formulation of the country's population policy, contending that there is a "problem of demographic imbalance" and "uneven" child ratio across the religions which needs to be addressed.

The RSS had said the religion data of Census 2011 highlighted the necessity of the review of population policy which was formulated in 2000.

The Census 2011 had showed that the Muslim community has registered 0.8 per cent growth to touch 17.22 crore in the 10 years between 2001 and 2011, up from 13.8 crore, while the population of Hindus showed a decline by 0.7 per cent at 96.63 crore during the period.