Karnataka govt to recount castes to assuage ‘fears', Congress cites ‘old data' for move
THE CONGRESS has told the Karnataka government to hold re-enumeration of various communities while giving 'in-principle' approval to a report on a survey done on castes in the state.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting of Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM D K Shivakumar with the high command in Delhi, Congress general secretary K C Venugopal acknowledged 'apprehensions' among some groups regarding the survey report.
The report, submitted by the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes on the basis of a Socio-Economic and Education Survey carried out in 2015, has seen protests by the Lingayats and Vokkaligas over its finding that the two dominant communities do not hold as big a share of the population as once presumed, and that around 70% of the state's population comprises Other Backward Classes (OBCs).
While the report was submitted in April, the Siddaramaiah government is yet to take action on the issue for fear of a backlash. However, any delay is a tricky issue for the Congress, given its commitment to a caste census and its focus on OBCs, underlined at the AICC Session this year.
Venugopal said: 'On the issue of caste census, the Congress party is (of the view) that whatever the Karnataka government has done on caste census has to be agreed to in principle. But, there are apprehensions from some sections of society about the counting of castes. Since the census was done 10 years earlier, the data is a little bit old. So, we suggested to the CM that re-enumeration be done within a stipulated time.'
Siddaramaiah said the re-enumeration exercise will be completed within 90 days. He also said that this was needed as the data collected by the 2015 survey was old, though 'we have to accept the report in principle'. Incidentally, the 2015 survey had been carried out under Siddaramaiah's first tenure as CM.
Siddaramaiah also said that the enumeration will be along the lines of the survey being carried out for Scheduled Castes in the state, which is being done ahead of provision of internal reservation among SCs.
The directions by the high command come two days ahead of a special Cabinet meeting scheduled by Siddaramaiah to discuss the caste report. A previous such meeting, held soon after the report was submitted in April, had ended with Siddaramaiah directing his Cabinet colleagues to submit 'written opinions' on the report. Recently, after a Cabinet meeting, the CM said that the opinion of all the ministers is yet to be received.
With the Karnataka CM and his deputy meeting the high command days after the Bengaluru stampede that left 11 dead, and which has been blamed by the Opposition on the two, the issue was expected to figure high in the talks. Venugopal said the issue did come up for discussion. 'Certainly, we are concerned about every life. The Karnataka government has ordered a judicial inquiry into the unfortunate incident. The party clearly believes there should be a pro-people attitude regarding the issue,' he said.
The Congress leader also accused the Narendra Modi-led Central government of 'completely neglecting' Karnataka in terms of allocations for various schemes. 'They are marginalising Karnataka. The Modi government is doing this type of injustice… it is not at all acceptable,' he said.
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