Jakarta, Aug 21 : India's Sanjeev Rajput clinched a silver medal in the men's 50 metre Rifle 3 Positions shooting event of the 18th Asian Games here on Tuesday.
Sanjeev scored 452.7 in the finals to hold the second place. The 37-year-old had earlier bagged bronze in the same category at the 2006 Doha Asian Games.
China's Hui Zicheng secured the gold medal after scoring 453.3, while Japan's Takayuki Matsumoto settled for bronze with a score of 441.4.
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Bengaluru: Leader of the Opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Assembly, R. Ashoka, has strongly criticised Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s statement suggesting that the Karnataka caste survey should serve as a model for national implementation.
Sharing his views on social media platform X, Ashoka called the Karnataka caste survey a “laughable model” and highlighted several flaws: the original copy is reportedly missing, the survey lacks proper official signatures, schoolchildren were allegedly paid Rs 5–10 per page to fill out forms, and surveyors skipped houses with dogs. He said the survey, even after ten years, exemplifies how *not* to conduct a caste census.
He refuted the claim that the BJP has always opposed caste census, calling it a “blatant lie.” Ashoka pointed out that in 2010, the then Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, the late Sushma Swaraj, had formally conveyed to the UPA government BJP’s support for including caste enumeration in the 2011 census. He also reminded that BJP supported the unanimous resolution passed in Parliament at the time.
However, he criticised the then Congress-led government for replacing the caste census with the 2011 Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC), which he claimed failed due to poor planning and ineffective implementation, despite the massive public expenditure involved. He noted that the results of that survey were never released, which, according to him, shows Congress’s lack of genuine commitment to caste-based data.
Ashoka emphasised that the BJP never used caste census as an electoral weapon. “Unlike Congress, which weeps in opposition but ignores the issue in power, BJP made concrete efforts while in office,” he said, adding that BJP’s stand has always been clear, caste census must not be politicised or misused.
He concluded by stating that the upcoming caste census planned by the central government will be conducted transparently, scientifically, and with sincerity, unlike the politically motivated approach of the Karnataka government.