'Will keep it before Cabinet': Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah hints at reviving caste census

Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday said that the Socio-Economic & Educational Survey, known popularly as caste census, will be placed before the Cabinet, which could potentially revive the political hot potato that took the backseat due to the Lok Sabha polls.

"I still haven't seen the report. It needs to come to the Cabinet for a discussion. I'll keep it before the Cabinet," Siddaramaiah told reporters.

This was Siddaramaiah's first comment on the caste census after he received the report from the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes in February this year. The government did nothing after accepting the report, plausibly fearing consequences in the Lok Sabha polls.

"I have received the report," Siddaramaiah specified. "But it hasn't been placed before the Cabinet, which we will do." However, the CM did not specify when the report will be kept before the Cabinet.

After Bihar released its caste census findings in October last year, setting off a political earthquake, pressure mounted on Siddaramaiah to follow suit.

It was during Siddaramaiah's first tenure as CM that he commissioned the survey, which was carried out between April 11 and May 30 in 2015. The government spent Rs 164.84 crore on this.

But the dominant Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities have opposed the report. They argue that their population was undercounted in the survey. Siddaramaiah's deputy D K Shivakumar, a Vokkaliga, had signed a petition against making the survey findings public.

The Socio-Economic & Educational Survey came up during a news conference when Siddaramaiah spoke about the need to assess the real extent of poverty in Karnataka. He was referring to how 80 per cent of citizens in the state have BPL cards.

The Socio-Economic & Educational Survey will have data on poverty, the CM conceded. "But nobody has seen the report."

In February this year, Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot told the Karnataka legislature that 1.2 crore families "are coming out of the poverty line and rising to the middle-class status" thanks to the Congress government's guarantee schemes.

"In Karnataka, 80 per cent of people are BPL card holders. This means that ineligible people are there in this category. I've asked for such people to be removed from BPL," Siddaramaiah said, adding that 40 per cent of people in Tamil Nadu have BPL cards while the figure is 36% in Kerala.

"There are 2.95 lakh BPL applications pending. We have to give the cards to those who are genuinely poor," Siddaramaiah said.