Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy addressing the BC associations on the BC caste survey taken up by the Telangana Government, at Praja Bhavan on February 22, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Chief Minister Revanth Reddy saw a conspiracy against the Backward Classes by the parties and groups that were targeting him despite taking up the BC caste survey for the first time in India and said it was the responsibility of the BCs to save this exercise or else they would end up losing.
“There seems to be a conspiracy by the BRS and the BJP and also some BC leaders who were raking up unnecessary controversies to defame the exercise either to scuttle the BC reservations or for personal gain,” he said addressing the representatives of various BC Associations on Saturday, February 22, 2025.
“I have done my job and you now have to save this exercise taken up for the first time in the country in the most scientific method where people themselves participated,” Mr. Reddy said giving credit to AICC leader Rahul Gandhi.
Mr. Rahul Gandhi directed me to complete the BC caste survey but the BJP and BRS were trying to discredit the survey to save their skin, he argued. “If they appreciate the exercise the BJP feels it would have to conduct the same in the entire country. The BRS knows once accepted it would be the end of their political future and they don’t want the credit to go to the Congress,” he said.
Mr. Reddy said the Congress made an effort for the enumeration of BCs in 2011 during the UPA government and demanded Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make that document public. Mr. Modi is worried that if the Telangana caste survey is accepted the BJP would be under pressure to conduct the same across the country.
Finding fault with those who were trying to pick up loopholes in the survey, he said the survey was done by the Planning Department going to every household. Those who could not participate in the survey were given a second opportunity as well, he reminded.
The Chief Minister said the onus of taking this survey to the people was with the caste associations and asked them to conduct meetings with the respective caste people and discuss if there were any discrepancies in the report. By March 10 come back with suggestions and passing resolutions adopting the same so that the survey report gets validity from the society.
“It is the only way to counter those trying to defame the survey with a personal grudge and if the BCs fall in their trap it would be a huge loss to them.”
Stating that the Household Survey conducted by the BRS government had discrepancies, he said it was completed in one day with no coordination between the enumerators and those feeding the details in computers. For example, he said 86 groups were shown among the Scheduled Castes in the BRS government survey while the recent survey by the Congress government found there were only 56 sub castes.
Since there was no coordination among officials in the 2014 survey of the BRS government a single caste was entered multiple times if the enumerators had misspelled the caste. For Mochi sub caste several names were entered as different enumerators used different spellings for the same caste, he said.
Published – February 22, 2025 05:56 pm IST