Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has accused the Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of trying to sabotage the caste census. Speaking at Gandhi Bhavan on Saturday, he warned that the census could lead to legal challenges but stressed its importance for the welfare of marginalized communities.
Reddy reminded the public that Senior Congress Leader Rahul Gandhi had promised to conduct a caste census if Congress came to power in Telangana. He said the Congress government was formed with the support of marginalized communities and that the caste census was being carried out to honor this promise.
Criticizing former Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao (KCR), Reddy claimed that KCR’s earlier survey, which was completed in just one day, was not credible. He accused KCR of hiding survey details for political purposes and argued that the survey conducted during his tenure was misleading. Reddy pointed out errors in the classification of Scheduled Castes (SCs), stating that KCR listed 86 castes when there are actually only 56.
The Chief Minister challenged anyone to find mistakes in the Congress-led survey, which was conducted by the Planning Department. He said that this survey was done thoroughly and without misinterpretation, unlike the previous ones.
Reddy also criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi, questioning his claims of representing the Backward Classes (BC) community. He urged Union Minister Bandi Sanjay to release the findings of the BC survey conducted by Congress in 2011 if he truly cared about BC welfare. He argued that making the survey results public would help ensure fair representation for BCs and could spark a national conversation on the issue.
Furthermore, Reddy suggested that revealing caste census figures might create difficulties for some influential groups within the BJP. He questioned why BRS leaders, including KCR, KTR, and Harish Rao, had not yet registered their caste details, implying that they feared scrutiny from the majority.
Lastly, Reddy compared Congress’s approach to data collection with that of BRS. He stated that while KCR’s government categorized data into four groups, the Congress government has collected details across five categories for a more complete understanding of Telangana’s community structure.
