CM Siddaramaiah defers tabling of Karnataka's caste census report by a week

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Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday said the tabling of the caste census report before the state cabinet has been deferred by a week.

The Karnataka Socio-Economic and Education Survey report, commonly known as the 'Karnataka caste census', was originally scheduled to be presented in the state cabinet meeting on January 16.

"There was a plan to table the caste census report in tomorrow's cabinet meeting. However, it will not be taken up tomorrow. It will be placed a week later in a subsequent cabinet meeting," Siddaramaiah told reporters here.

Asked about divergent views regarding the report's findings by different communities, the chief minister said, "Even I don't know the contents of the report. It has not been discussed in the cabinet yet."  He added that the report will be made public after the cabinet decision.

"We will decide after taking into account the public comments," he said.

The ongoing public discussion is based on "assumption" as the report has not been made public yet, the chief minister said.

Earlier in Bengaluru, Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara had said the report was likely to be placed before the cabinet on Thursday while stressing that its contents should be made public.

"It was decided the sealed cover (of the report) will be opened before the cabinet, otherwise it may lead to leakage of information... whether there will be a discussion on it or not, I cannot speak about it now, once opened at least abstract information will be known to us," Parameshwara told reporters while replying to a question.

Parameshwara said the report that was prepared by spending Rs 160 crore should come out as there is a demand to make it public.

The caste census has emerged as a contentious issue, particularly among the state's dominant communities, the Lingayats and Vokkaligas, who have expressed reservations about the survey done, calling it "unscientific", and have demanded that it be rejected and a fresh survey be conducted.

The survey was commissioned by the previous Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in 2015, with then Backward Classes Commission chairman H Kantharaju heading the committee.

The survey, conducted at a cost of approximately Rs 169 crore, was completed by 2016 but subsequent governments kept it in cold storage.

In 2020, the BJP government appointed Jayaprakash Hegde as the commission chief. Hegde submitted the final report to the Siddaramaiah government on February 29, 2024.

Hegde had said the report was prepared based on data collected by 1.6 lakh officials, including 1.33 lakh teachers under the leadership of respective deputy commissioners of the districts across the state.

With strong disapproval from the two politically influential communities, the survey report may turn out to be a political hot potato for the government as it may set the stage for a confrontation with Dalits and OBCs among others demanding for it to be made public.

Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, who is also the state Congress president and a Vokkaliga, was a signatory along with a couple of other ministers to a memorandum submitted by the community to the chief minister earlier, requesting that the report and the data be rejected.

All India Veerashaiva Mahasabha, the apex body of Veerashaiva-Lingayats, which has also expressed its disapproval vis-a-vis the survey and demanded the conduct of a fresh survey, is headed by veteran Congress leader and MLA Shamanuru Shivashankarappa. Several Lingayat ministers and MLAs too have raised objections.

According to some reports, the findings of the survey are allegedly contrary to the "traditional perception" with regard to the numerical strength of various castes in Karnataka, especially Lingayats and Vokkaligas, making it a politically sticky issue.

Earlier in the day, Siddaramaiah, who was in the national capital for the inauguration of the Congress party's new office, also inspected the renovated Karnataka Bhavan building at Chanakyapuri ahead of its scheduled inauguration at the month-end.