NEW DELHI: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to draw upon the Telangana model for the caste survey, remove 50 per cent cap for reservation and immediately implement Article 15(5) providing for reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs in private educational institutions.

In a letter to Modi, Kharge also called on the prime minister to have a dialogue with all political parties soon on the issue of the caste census.

"Conducting any exercise such as the caste census which gives the backward, the oppressed and the marginalized sections of our society their rights cannot and should not be considered divisive in any way," Kharge said.

"Our great nation and our large-hearted people have always come together as one whenever needed, just as we have done after the recent cowardly terrorist attacks in Pahalgam," he said in his letter to Modi dated May 5.

The Congress believes that conducting the caste census in the comprehensive manner is absolutely necessary to ensure social and economic justice and equality of status and opportunity as pledged in the Preamble of our Constitution, Kharge said.

Sharing Kharge's letter on X, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said, "Following the CWC meeting on May 2nd, the Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge ji wrote to the PM last night on Mr. Modi's sudden and desperate U-turn on the caste census - even as the nation's anguish and anger at the brutal Pahalgam terror attacks continued unabated."

"Kharge ji has made three very specific suggestions," he said.