Bengaluru: A speech by Rahul Gandhi at the All India Congress Committee (AICC) meeting in Ahmedabad last week prompted Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to bite the bullet on releasing a 10-year-old caste census, ThePrint has learnt.
Rahul, who has championed the cause of a nation-wide caste census, heaped praise on Telangana CM Revanth Reddy for not just conducting the survey but also implementing it. He, however, skipped any mention of Siddaramaiah.
A senior Congress leader told ThePrint that Rahul’s silence was “like an unstated snub” to the Karnataka chief minister, who is fighting an internecine battle in the Congress to avoid any change of guard after completing half-term.
At the time of the formation of the government in 2023, the Congress high command was reported to have promised rotational chief ministership to his deputy D.K. Shivakumar. Rahul skipping any mention is said to have pushed Siddaramaiah to finally move on the 2015 survey done in Karnataka.
“Rahul Gandhi heaped praise on Revanth Reddy but didn’t even mention Siddaramaiah. There was also some talk that though Siddaramaiah is from OBC, he has not released a 10-year-old report while Reddy, from a dominant community, was able to,” another senior Congress leader told ThePrint.
Siddaramaiah has called for a special cabinet meeting 17 April to discuss in detail the findings of the 2015 socio-economic and education survey. Jayaprakash Hegde, the former chairman of the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes, had submitted the report in March last year.
Leaked findings of the report have already deepened the fissures in the ruling party over growing speculation of a possible change of guard. Congress leaders like Shivakumar, M.B.Patil and others have come out against releasing the report, while the opposition is targeting the Congress for pandering to the minorities, especially Muslims, and recommendations to double their reservation.
On Monday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the Congress was turning the Constitution as a “weapon” and “medium of appeasement” to gain power. “You must have heard in the news, Karnataka’s Congress government has reserved tenders for Muslims….taking the rights away from SC/ST and OBCs and giving religion-based reservation,” Modi told a rally in Hisar, Haryana.
‘Reverse gear’
According to the leaked findings, Muslims account for 18.08 percent of Karnataka’s population and the Commission has recommended doubling reservation from 4 percent to 8 percent. 5.98 crore people or 94.17 percent of the state’s population were asked 54 questions on various parameters for the survey. It was estimated that the total population of Muslims was 75,25,880, making them possibly the single largest group in the state.
Category 1 (most backward) has 4 percent, II-A (more backward classes) has 15 percent, II-B (Muslims) have 4 percent, III-A (which includes Vokkaligas) has 4 percent and III-B (which includes sub-sects of Lingayats) has 5 percent, according to the state backward classes reservation list.
But, the recommendations by Hegde take the total reservation from 32 percent to 51 percent, a shade higher than the 50 percent reservation cutoff set by the Supreme Court for SCs, STs and OBCs.
The Congress leader cited above said that if the leaked findings are true, then it would be difficult to implement.
During the Veerappa Moily-led government between November 1992 and December 1994, the findings of the Chinnappa Reddy Commission were implemented. This included adding religious minorities like Muslims, Sikhs, Jains and Christians into the backward classes list.
“From 1992 till now, about 32 years, this formula has stood the test of time and law and the CM should have taken cue from this. But instead they (the findings) have added to the confusion and this report, if true, cannot be implemented,” the leader said.
The leader added that the entire purpose of the Commission was to bring people out of social, educational and economic backwardness and not push them into it.
According to the leader, Siddaramaiah has put Kurubas, a shepherding community from which he hails, from more backward classes to most backward classes.
The Chinnappa Reddy Commission had made three broad classifications–most backward, more backward and backward. “Groups are supposed to go from bottom to top and not the other way around. Kurubas have been put from more to most backward. This is illogical. Instead, they are in reverse gear and this causes accidents,” the leader said.
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Sub-caste politics
Political analysts say that Siddaramaiah is likely to have a multi-pronged approach for releasing the caste census.
The Congress under Siddaramaiah relies heavily on AHINDA (Kannada acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits). And since Siddaramaiah himself is from a backward community, it becomes that much more difficult for the Congress to replace him, least of all by Shivakumar who is from the dominant Vokkaliga community.
One of the analysts said that this also puts in motion his earlier plans to ally with more backward sub-caste groups of Lingayats to identify with other backward groups.
“What he will need for that negotiation is to get the caste-wise breakup of Lingayat and possibly the Vokkaligas to get details on the sub-castes. Once he does that the overall numbers will not matter,” said another Bengaluru-based analyst.
There are many sub-sects of Lingayats who are now in other backward classes, and community leaders attribute this splintering to its lower numbers.
The other, the analyst said, was possibly to revive the separate religion movement by the Lingayats. In 2018, Siddaramaiah had approved a minority religion status for Lingayats but this backfired with the Congress losing power in the assembly elections that year.
Congress leader M.B.Patil had led this separate religion movement but it failed with the likes of B.S.Yediyurappa, the Congress party’s Shamnur Shivashankarappa and others arguing against it.
Siddaramaiah has also put in motion plans to suggest that Karnataka should get a CM from the SC or ST community. His own trusted aides like Satish Jarkiholi, H.C.Mahadevappa and others like G.Parameshwara have all tried to push this on public platforms to send a message to the high command that Shivakumar was not the only option.
Shivakumar summons Vokkaliga leaders
Given the tight hold of caste over Karnataka’s political and social landscape, political leaders place more importance to caste groups than the party since it is community-based support that gets them elected.
Leaders from the Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities fear that their numbers have been shrunk from the earlier believed numbers. Shivakumar has been advocating to scrap the census, mirroring the views of the Vokkaligas who believe that the survey does not represent them truthfully. He has called for a meeting of all Vokkaliga leaders from the Congress party for a meeting Tuesday evening in Bengaluru.
“I have not read it, but I am analysing it. (I) Have called some legislators to discuss this. How to safeguard everyone’s respect, not hurt anyone…we will take their opinion and then move forward,” Shivakumar told reporters.
Women & child welfare minister Lakshmi Hebbalkar said that the Lingayats are not against the census but it has to be done again. “Some (sub-sects) are in different categories of the backward classes list. Some don’t club themselves as Veerashaiva Lingayats…..since the community is fragmented, the total numbers appear to be smaller,” she said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition, demanded that a fresh census be conducted and the “old, unscientific report” should be binned.
“The CM says one thing and his deputy says another. Ministers M.B. Patil and G. Parameshwara give differing statements. There is confusion within the ruling party,” BJP state chief B.Y.Vijayendra said.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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