Hyderabad: Telangana Jagruthi president Kalvakuntla Kavitha accused the BJP-led Centre of misleading the public on the caste census and warned that the proposed format would cause serious injustice to several communities.
Speaking at a caste census round-table meeting in Hyderabad, Kavitha criticised the draft census document. She said the document continued to list only Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as separate categories. At the same time, she said the Centre had grouped OBCs and other castes under a vague “others” column.
As a result, Kavitha said castes and sub-castes would lose visibility in official data. She warned that this approach would deny social groups their due recognition. She also said caste classification already differed from state to state. Therefore, she said the confusion would deepen for the OBC community, which she said formed about 56 per cent of the population.
Kavitha questions clarity in caste census categories
Moreover, Kavitha said the caste column lacked clarity even within upper castes. She pointed to Economically Weaker Section certificates issued to poor families among upper castes. In this context, she questioned where such beneficiaries would be placed in the current census format.
Hence, Kavitha alleged that the Centre had deliberately designed the census document to create confusion. Meanwhile, she said caste census discussions were underway across the country. Accordingly, she said Telangana must also convey its views clearly to the Centre.
Further, Kavitha said Telangana Jagruthi would collect caste and sub-caste data across the state. Subsequently, the organisation would submit the compiled data to the Centre for consideration.
However, she said the Congress government in the state should have taken up this responsibility. Finally, Kavitha criticised both the BRS and the Congress for remaining silent on the census document despite its wider social impact.
