The Telangana Assembly on Tuesday adopted a resolution urging the Centre to emulate its household caste and socio-economic survey conducted by the state government. Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy strongly defended the caste census amid Opposition accusations of under-enumerating weaker sections. He challenged the Opposition BJP and BRS to support him in providing 42 percent reservation to the Backward Classes, who constitute over 50 percent of the state’s population. Reddy also alleged that his prime rival, the Kalvakuntla family, sidestepped the survey to avoid giving land details, and thundered that this would pressurise the Centre to follow suit.

As the Opposition, particularly the BRS, alleged that the data had been manipulated, Reddy hit back at the Opposition, stating, “There is no manipulation involved. We don’t have any hidden agenda. We are doing this work with full transparency. You didn’t ask for this (discussion), we did it with full transparency. We passed the report in the Cabinet and then tabled it in the Assembly. This was done with full integrity and credibility. It is not that we will give out half the information and hide the rest. We are only worried about data privacy.”

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He added that while there were four volumes, he was ready to table the first three. However, disclosing the fourth one would involve breaching data privacy as it contained the details of individuals. “The Opposition never asked. I took the onus to bring it to the Assembly for discussion… Tell us with which caste we have treated unfairly. Who are they trying to provoke? Those who didn’t conduct such a survey are pointing fingers at us who executed this,” he said, taking a dig at the BRS.

When BRS leaders like KT Rama Rao compared the data with the earlier survey done by the BRS government under K Chandrasekhar Rao, Reddy explained that the previous survey had estimated BCs at 51 percent, other castes at 21 percent, SCs at 18 percent, and STs at 10 percent. The Muslim population was recorded at 11 percent in the BRS survey, whereas the current one puts it at 12.6 percent. He concluded that the number of both Hindu and Muslim BCs had increased, while that of other castes (including Muslims) had come down. He said that the earlier survey had placed OCs at 21 percent of the population, whereas the current one shows it has come down to 13 percent.

Reddy even named the Opposition MLAs and MPs from BJP and BRS who did not participate in the survey. He alleged that the Kalvakuntla family did not take part in the census because they did not want to disclose the details of their land. He said they would give 42 percent reservation to BCs in local polls. KT Rama Rao demanded that the Bill be introduced on the same day, following which the BRS MLAs walked out.

Earlier in the day, the Speaker adjourned the House till 2 pm after the Legislative Affairs Minister D Sridhar Babu informed that the Cabinet meeting was yet to get over. However, the BRS MLAs took a dig at the Congress government over what they thought was a gaffe.