Amid opposition from the BJP, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday defended the decision to hold a Socio-Economic and Educational Survey or caste census in the state, saying that the exercise was essential to gauge the status of various communities.
The fresh survey would “help the government in formulating development programmes”, Siddaramaiah said, speaking to reporters at Kalaburagi, and dismissed the BJP’s criticism regarding the exercise as merely “political”.
The survey is being held from September 22 to October 7 across the state. It is being held up for the second time as the findings of a similar survey conducted in 2015 were junked by the state government, arguing that the Census data was more than a decade old. The decision taken in June this year was also attributed to opposition from the dominant Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities.
A day earlier, BJP leaders, including BJP Parliamentary Board member and former Karnataka chief minister B S Yediyurappa, had cast apprehensions over the upcoming exercise. Yediyurappa has criticised the survey, alleging that there was an attempt to divide the Veerashaiva Lingayat community. “If we do not stand united now, the next generation will not forgive us,” he said, adding that he would meet representatives of the Veerashaiva Mahasabha, seers from five peetas of Lingayats, and others to decide on the survey.
BJP state president B Y Vijayendra, recalling the agitation for a separate Veerashaiva-Lingayat religion status during Siddaramaiah’s last tenure, said that it was another attempt to divide the community. He also objected to the inclusion of ‘Others’ as a religious classification in the survey.
A delegation of representatives from the BJP, under Samajika Nyaya Jagruti Vedike-Karnataka, submitted a memorandum to Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot on Tuesday, expressing strong objections to the survey. Among the complaints raised by it included the “unnecessarily long and complicated” questionnaire, inclusion of Christian identifiers such as ‘Kumbara Christian’, ‘Madiwala Christian’ and others in caste categories, lack of justification for including the ‘religion’ column in the caste survey, and opposition from prominent seers against the survey.
The petition requested Gehlot to “advise” the Karnataka government against proceeding with the “flawed and divisive exercise”, adding that the BJP would not allow the Congress government to “misuse caste survey for political mileage and to divide society”.
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The survey will involve 1.75 lakh teachers as enumerators, each of whom will have to visit 120-150 houses for data collection.