Opposition sees caste census as ‘Brahmastra’ to counter BJP

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has been pressing for a caste-based census since long and had even passed a resolution in the State Assembly two years ago

Hyderabad: With the issue of caste census emerging as a weapon to tackle BJP’s Hindutva plank in the 2024 polls, the Opposition is now going all out on the subject of caste-based census and quotas across the country.

The way caste census played a decisive role in the mobilization of backward caste voters in the Karnataka election, Opposition parties are of the opinion that it could help them win back many backward classes who deviated towards the BJP in the recent past. With the demand for caste census bringing all opposition parties on the same page, they have started discussions on tactical pre-poll alliances and taking up politics centred on caste census.

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Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has been pressing for a caste-based census since long and had even passed a resolution in the State Assembly two years ago, seeking a Census of Backward Classes while holding the general census for 2021.

According to Telangana State Commission for Backward Classes chairman V Krishna Mohan Rao, since caste census holds the key to identify the exact percentage of BCs in the total population and also analytically depict their representation in the spheres of education, employment, social status and politics, there was an urgent need for it to be taken up.

“Caste Census has already become a national issue. BJP can no more ignore it. It is going to be a major issue during the 2024 polls,” he said.

Meanwhile, following increasing demand from various quarters and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi raising the issue during his election rally in Kolar in Karnataka, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge recently wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to urgently implement the caste census.

The census is snowballing into a major issue with non-BJP parties in Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Bihar, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Odisha too planning to turn it into a mass movement.

Surprisingly, the Modi government has not only declined to release the report of Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011-12 , but has also refused to enumerate caste in the 2021 Census. Instead, the Modi government has written to State governments to conduct caste census if they wish. Following this Odisha and Bihar have started its second phase of caste-based Census, but the Centre continues to resist a national census that takes caste into account.

Political analysts observe that the BJP was not conducting caste-based Census as it feared it would have to give more seats to BCs. Leaders seeking party tickets make exaggerated claims about the percentage of voters of their caste in constituencies and since the caste census can break such myths by revealing the accurate composition of social groups in the constituencies, the BJP was delaying it.

The saffron leadership also fears that a caste census could break the hold of dominant castes, hence they do not want it to be done before 2024 as it could change caste equations drastically.

The SECC 2011, the first caste-based census since the 1931 Census of India, was conducted under the Congress-led UPA government. Interestingly, it chose not to release the data then. Even in Karnataka, the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government, which carried out a caste census in 2015, chose not to publish the survey.