Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy vows to complete caste census on schedule

Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy has vowed on Tuesday (November 05) that the Congress government will complete the caste census on time and will ensure Backward Classes receive their due through reservations.

Addressing the State-level consultation on caste census organised by the party at its Bowenpally centre here, the Chief Minister said the government has taken up the onerous task as a responsibility and hailed Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi for having the guts to take suggestions directly from the people about the exercise.

“Mr. Gandhi has promised to ensure social justice and equal opportunities to the marginalised sections in the fields of education, employment and health. The motto of our government is to simply implement his word in letter and spirit in Telangana,” he said.

The Congress government’s commitment to the social justice can be ascertained by the fact that a majority of the candidates who had cleared Group 1 Mains examination hailed from the discriminated sections, including OBCs (17,921/57.11%), SC (4,828/15.3%), ST (2,783/8.8%), OC (3,076/9.8%) and EWS (2,774/8.8%) of the 31,383 chosen. A resolution will be passed at the meeting urging the Centre to take up caste census along with population census in 2025, he added.

Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka said it was a “golden letter day” in the history of the country with Mr. Gandhi coming down to discuss the caste survey in TG. He told the meeting that from the day the Congress Party came into power, Mr. Revanth Reddy and the entire Cabinet started working on giving shape and direction to Mr. Gandhi’s thoughts and ideas on conducting caste census.

The first step was to pass an unanimous resolution in Assembly, then issuing a GO and bring it into the public domain. Several meetings have already been held by the party at different levels on finalising the framework and today’s interaction with social scientists by Mr. Gandhi and others will also be incorporated into the proposed questionnaire.

Mr. Gandhi was convinced about caste census during his ‘Padayatra’ from Kashmir to Kanya Kumari when he interacted with various people. “He firmly believed caste census is the only way to make available the nation’s resources and assets equally to all sections of society rendering justice to all,” added the Deputy CM.

Published - November 05, 2024 09:15 pm IST