NEW DELHI, Feb. 10 (Xinhua) -- Senior leader from India's main opposition Congress Party Sonia Gandhi Monday asked the federal government to conduct the long-overdue population census without further delay.
Gandhi made the demand while speaking in the upper house (locally called Rajya Sabha) of the Indian parliament.
She claimed around 140 million people in the country were being deprived of benefits under the food security law.
The former Congress Party president highlighted that despite significant demographic shifts over the years, the National Food Security Act beneficiaries were still determined based on outdated data from the 2011 census.
The census in India was due in 2021. The once-in-a-decade population count was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic and technical and logistical hurdles. ■