The Telangana Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution on Tuesday, urging the Centre to emulate the comprehensive household socio-economic, employment, political, and caste survey conducted by the state government.
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy moved the resolution stating that the state government is committed to the welfare of Backward Classes, SCs and STs and other weaker sections in the state.
The Centre should conduct such a survey across the country to understand the conditions of various castes, the resolution said.
Speaker G Prasad Kumar announced that the resolution was adopted unanimously.
During the one-day special session convened to debate the caste survey and also the report of a judicial commission on SC categorization, Revanth Reddy made a statement on the survey conducted by the Congress government.
He outlined the details of the survey, shared by state minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy, two days ago.
Observing that a constitutional amendment is required to provide 42 per cent reservations to Backward Classes as per law (which leads to breaching the 50 per cent cap on quotas), Mr Reddy said the Congress would provide a 42 per cent quota for Backward Classes in the upcoming local body elections in the state.
He asked whether the opposition BRS and BJP would follow suit.
Before the 2023 assembly polls, the Congress had promised to increase the backward class reservations in local bodies to 42 per cent.
On AIMIM floor leader Akbaruddin Owaisi's assertion that the caste survey report itself has not been tabled in the house with only the Chief Minister's statement being shared with the members, Revanth Reddy said the report is in four volumes and that the fourth volume cannot be made public as it deals with personal data of citizens.
Noting that the government is transparent, he said it is ready to table the data after legal vetting and that it has nothing to hide.
Referring to the data of an Intensive Household Survey (IHS) conducted during the previous BRS government, he said the population of Muslims according to the IHS was 11 per cent, while it grew to 12.56 per cent as per the caste survey.
The population of backward classes according to IHS was 40 per cent, while it is 46.25 per cent as per the latest survey.
It is the population of Other Castes (OC) which declined from 21 per cent of IHS to 15 per cent (including OCs in Muslims) in the caste survey, he said.
In a sharp attack on BRS, Reddy said the data of IHS was neither approved by the cabinet nor by the assembly then.
Revanth Reddy alleged that BRS president K Chandrasekhar Rao, his son and party Working President K T Rama Rao and other party leaders, besides BJP MP D K Aruna did not participate in the caste survey.
Noting that the census was conducted every decade but not after Narendra Modi became Prime Minister in 2014, Revanth Reddy alleged that the BJP does not want to give opportunities to backward classes.
Revanth Reddy said Congress will put pressure to conduct the survey nationwide on the Centre through the Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi by raising it in the Parliament.
BRS staged a walkout from the assembly with the party's Working President K T Rama Rao alleging that the Congress is deceiving the backward classes as the caste survey is showing a decline in BC population.
BJP's Payala Shankar, among others, indicated that the caste survey report talks about 'Muslim BCs' which is factually incorrect. This may not stand legal scrutiny, he said.
The state cabinet met on Tuesday morning to deliberate on the caste survey and the judicial commission report on SC categorization, before presenting it to the Assembly for discussion.
The state planning department, which conducted the caste survey, submitted its report to the cabinet sub-committee headed by Civil Supplies Minister N Uttam Kumar Reddy on February 2.
According to the caste survey, Backward Classes, excluding Muslim minorities, form the largest group, constituting 46.25 per cent of Telangana's total 3.70 crore population.
The BC population is followed by Scheduled Castes at 17.43 per cent, Scheduled Tribes at 10.45 per cent, Backward Classes among Muslims at 10.08 per cent, Other Castes at 13.31 per cent, and OCs among Muslims at 2.48 per cent.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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