Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah tables caste census report in Cabinet, decision on April 17

Bengaluru: The Karnataka cabinet on Friday took on record the finding of the controversial socio-economic survey, also called the caste census report, and decided to meet again on April 17 to discuss it and take a call on the way ahead.

Chief minister Siddaramaiah directed that copies of the report be given to ministers to study and place their opinions at the next meeting. Siddaramaiah finally gave his green signal to bring the report before the cabinet after the Congress regime put off the exercise on a couple of occasions, worried over the political repercussions of its action.

The government had been caught between Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's firm stand on the issue and stiff resistance to the report from the pontiffs of dominant Lingayats and Vokkaliga communities.

The Karnataka State Permanent Backward Classes Commission had submitted its 13-volume report on February 29, 2024, and its findings had been under wraps, though parts of its purported contents had leaked.

The commission, chaired by H Kantharaja, conducted the survey for almost two months in early 2015, covering social, educational, economic, occupational and political representational status of communities on 54 parameters.

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Quite a few ministers, including deputy CM DK Shivakumar, and heads of influential mutts of dominant communities had expressed their resistance to the report on grounds that it was flawed with a set of dated data. Some of them called for fresh findings based on a set of scientific parameters.

Gandhi has been a strong advocate of caste census in every state to determine the proportion of backward communities. Lingayat and Vokkaliga ministers, however, abstained from airing their opinion on the subject apparently for fear of inviting the leadership's wrath, according to people in the know.

Siddaramaiah had been under pressure to make the report public after the Bihar government released its survey of castes in October 2023. Veerashaiva-Lingayats and Vokkaligas have been resisting any action on the caste census report as these communities are worried of losing out on opportunities and political clout if the report were to reset the pecking order of communities.