Caste survey 'flawed, fraudulent', claims Veerashaiva-Lingayat Mahasabha amid uproar over data gaps

BENGALURU: The caste survey report has sparked a storm across Karnataka, with the powerful Vokkaliga leaders meeting national chairman of the Veerashaiva-Lingayat Mahasabha Shamanur Shivashankarappa on Friday, and both communities unleashing a scathing attack on its credibility.
Labelling the survey 'completely unscientific', Veerashaiva Mahasabha National Secretary HM Renuka Prasanna alleged massive under-reporting, data manipulation and inexplicable omissions that he claimed amount to nothing short of demographic erasure. '66 lakh is a joke,' said Prasanna, rejecting the official figure for the Veerashaiva-Lingayat population.
'Other commissions have clearly stated our population is between 1.3 crore and 1.4 crore. How did this number suddenly shrink to half? It is not just the Lingayats. Several caste populations seem grossly inflated or deflated beyond logic," Prasanna said.
"Muslims and Kurubas have been shown to be 94% and 74% higher, while the population of Lingayats, Vokkaligas, Brahmins and Jains has mysteriously dwindled. 'Upper caste families showing just one child each? That's fiction,' he added.
Even more baffling are discrepancies in subgroup counts. 'Only 2.5 lakh Sadar 2A Hindus,' Prasanna asked, insisting that this is off by a huge margin. 'There should be 67,000 in just one region. How can Davangere alone have 4-5 lakh and the total number can still be less,' he added.
Nonabas from Tumakuru to Hubballi have been shown as a mere 1.5 lakh — a figure he stated as 'wildly inaccurate'.
The massive Panchamasali sect, shown as 10 lakh across two heads, is allegedly missing 10 lakh people. A Veerashaiva-Lingayat Mahasabha member termed the exercise as political sidelining.
'Former chief ministers like S Nijalingappa, BD Jatti, Veerendra Patil, SR Kanti, JH Patel, and Jagdish Shettar — all Banajiga Lingayats — come from a community shown as just around 1 lakh, whereas they should easily number 10 lakh or more,' he said.
Sub-sects like Reddy Lingayats, Ganiga Lingayats, Hande Wazir, Agasa, Hadpad, and Gowli Lingayats, have allegedly been sidelined or poorly counted. Even worse, 16 Lingayat sub-sects are entirely missing from the enumeration, raising red flags about the methodology of the survey.
'Meanwhile, Muslim data is perfect. Why? Because they ensured religion, caste, and sub-caste aligned properly during enumeration. We didn't get that chance.' he fumed. 'This survey is not just flawed — it's fraudulent. It's unscientific, inconsistent, and deeply damaging,' alleged Prasanna.

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