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NEW DELHI: Outgoing Karnataka main curate Siddaramaiah seems to person near a ticking weaponry arsenic a parting acquisition for his successor DK Shivakumar and Rahul Gandhi earlier deciding to measurement down from his presumption connected Thursday.A time earlier resigning arsenic main minister, Siddaramaiah connected Wednesday accepted the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Classes’ long-delayed acquisition survey report, popularly known arsenic the caste census.The study connected Karnataka’s archetypal caste survey has been acceptable since 2017, during Siddaramaiah’s erstwhile word arsenic main minister. After returning to powerfulness successful 2023, Siddaramaiah ordered a caller caste survey, the study for which was prepared successful 2025.Siddaramaiah’s determination to judge the study conscionable earlier stepping down is being seen arsenic a important governmental message.Critics had alleged that successive governments avoided acting connected the archetypal study for fearfulness of backlash from Lingayats and Vokkaligas, the politically ascendant communities successful the state.With the revised study present formally submitted, the absorption shifts to the adjacent main curate and the cabinet, which volition person to determine whether to instrumentality its recommendations.Why it mattersThe Karnataka government’s 2025 caste survey is among the astir exhaustive exercises undertaken by the authorities to representation the socio-economic presumption of backward classes, different castes, scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.The study is, however, politically delicate due to the fact that it has the imaginable to disrupt Karnataka’s cautiously balanced caste equations.
Reports suggest that backward communities whitethorn outnumber Lingayats and Vokkaligas — the 2 ascendant communities that person traditionally shaped the state’s authorities for decades.Siddaramaiah’s AHINDA authorities — an confederation of minorities, backward classes and Dalits — was built precisely to situation that dominance by uniting numerically beardown but politically fragmented groups. The caste census study is present seen arsenic empirical validation of the AHINDA bloc’s societal spot and could reignite that governmental conflict connected a overmuch larger scale.This places DK Shivakumar successful a hard position. Shivakumar is not lone the Congress’ astir salient Vokkaliga person successful Karnataka but is besides wide credited with rebuilding the party’s organisational operation successful the state.If a authorities led by him moves up with tabling oregon implementing the report, it risks backlash from influential Lingayat and Vokkaliga communities. On the different hand, delaying oregon shelving the study could alienate the AHINDA enactment basal that Siddaramaiah cautiously consolidated for the Congress implicit the years.In effect, Siddaramaiah has pushed DKS betwixt a stone and a hard place.Rahul Gandhi’s credibility astatine stake?The Karnataka caste census besides creates a governmental situation for Leader of Opposition successful Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi astatine the nationalist level.Rahul Gandhi has made the caste census a cardinal pillar of the Congress party’s nationalist politics. He has argued that close caste information is indispensable for ensuring societal justice, just practice and targeted payment policies for OBCs, Dalits and minorities.It was Rahul Gandhi who powerfully pushed Congress-ruled states to behaviour caste surveys successful bid to task the enactment arsenic superior astir implementing the societal justness docket it advocates politically.Karnataka and Telangana nether Revanth Reddy emerged arsenic the biggest investigating grounds for that strategy.If the adjacent authorities nether Shivakumar avoids implementing oregon tabling the report, it could weaken Rahul Gandhi’s larger nationalist communicative connected societal justice. It would besides springiness the BJP an accidental to impeach the Congress of demanding a caste census nationally portion hesitating to enactment connected it successful states wherever it faces governmental resistance.
