Congress tells Siddaramaiah govt to recount castes to assuage ‘fears', cites ‘old data'

Indian Express

a day ago

The Congress high command directed the party's government in Karnataka Tuesday to conduct a recount of castes, two months after the findings of a report on a 10-year-old survey created a rift in the party and drew criticism from the politically dominant Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities and some non-Kuruba backward classes.
The decision on a recount was taken at a meeting Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge and Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi held with Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy CM D K Shivakumar in Delhi. AICC general secretary (Organisation) K C Venugopal and AICC general secretary in-charge of Karnataka Randeep Surjewala were also present.
Apart from the caste census conundrum, Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar, who is also the Karnataka Congress president, had been summoned by the leadership to Delhi to discuss the political fallout of the recent stampede in Bengaluru which claimed 11 lives. The Opposition has blamed the warring CM and his deputy for the breakdown of systems that led to the stampede and, as per sources, the two were pulled up by the high command.
Ever since Siddaramaiah placed a report on the Socio-Economic and Education Survey before the Cabinet in April – incidentally two days after the AICC Session in Ahmedabad where the party leadership was fulsome in its praise for the caste survey conducted by the Telangana government – politics in Karnataka has been on the boil, with the party and the Cabinet also divided on the issue.
On Tuesday, the Congress leadership asked the Siddaramaiah government to accord 'in-principle' approval to the survey, conducted in the first half of 2015, but conduct enumeration afresh within three months.
The survey report, data and recommendations were submitted by the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes in 2024. However, both its recommendations and population data had immediately come under question, with objections ranging from 'undercounting' to the categorisation of some castes as most backward.
Both Vokkaliga and Lingayat organisations demanded a fresh survey, after their population was found to be a little over 10% and close to 11%, respectively, much less than estimated so far. The Vokkaligas (Shivakumar is one) and Lingayats currently enjoy reservation under the III A and III B categories of the OBC quota.
The non-Kuruba backward classes took objection to the recommendation that the Kurubas – a community to which Siddaramaiah belongs – be moved from 'more backward' to 'most backward' category. With the total population of backward classes in the state estimated to be as high as 70%, the non-Kuruba leaders, including of the Congress, have expressed the fear that the OBC reservation benefits will be cornered by the Kurubas.
Other leaders argued that the data, collected in 2015, was old and did not reflect current ground reality.
Sources said that the Congress high command felt these were serious objections and needed to be addressed. But it wants this done on a priority basis. At Tuesday's meeting, it was underlined to Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar that the Telangana caste survey was completed in under three months.
Siddaramaiah had earlier called for a special Cabinet meeting on June 12 to discuss the report. Now, the meeting in all likelihood will accept the report 'in principle' and discuss the modalities and timeline for the fresh enumeration. 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.
While the Siddaramaiah government has reasons to be wary given the fear of a backlash, any delay is a tricky issue for the Congress, given its commitment to a caste census and its focus on OBCs.
However, sources said, Rahul Gandhi, who has been asking the party to aggressively reach out to OBCs, Dalits and tribals, was clear that the caste data should be foolproof and the exercise be seen as credible, so that the party could highlight it across the country.
'The Congress party is thinking that whatever the Karnataka government has done on caste census… that has to be agreed in principle. But there are apprehensions among some sections of the community and people about the counting of castes. The caste census was conducted 10 years ago, that data is a bit old. Therefore, we have suggested to the Chief Minister to do a re-enumeration within a stipulated time, like 60-70 or 80 days,' Venugopal told reporters after the meeting.
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 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.
On the stampede that led to 11 deaths, Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar were questioned by the high command over the decision to celebrate the maiden IPL title victory of Royal Challengers Bangalore on a weekday. Sources said Kharge and Gandhi also expressed their displeasure over the involvement of the state government in the celebrations.
A source said Gandhi told Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar that human lives are of 'great value' to the Congress and the government has to be responsive towards people, 'unlike the BJP government in Uttar Pradesh or the Left government in Kerala, where no responsibility was taken for the loss of lives during the Kumbh and Sabarimala tragedy respectively'.
The CM was told to handhold the families who have lost their loved ones and put in place a full protocol for crowd management to prevent such mishaps from recurring.
'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,' Venugopal said.