Veerashaiva Mahasabha urges Karnataka government to undertake a fresh and ‘scientific’ caste census

Mahasabha urges Karnataka govt. to conduct fresh, "scientific" caste census based on facts.

The Akhila Bharatha Veerashaiva Mahasabha, in a petition signed by many community leaders including Ministers, has urged the Karnataka government to undertake a fresh and “scientific” socio-economic and educational survey (caste census) based on facts, and alleged that the 2015 survey was “factually inaccurate”.

Claiming that the mahasabha is not opposed to caste census, a delegation led by its president Shamanur Shivashankarappa told Chief Minister Siddaramaiah here on Friday that the census conducted in 2015 suffered from lacunae. “There is a need to set right this problem. That is why we are appealing to you to undertake a new scientific caste survey based on facts,” the petition submitted to Mr. Siddaramaiah said.

The petition was signed by 33 of the 49 Lingayat legislators. They included Ministers Eshwar Khandre, M.B. Patil, and Shivanand Patil, BJP State president B,Y. Vijayendra, Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, and Aravind Bellad.

Earlier, Vokkaligara Sangha also argued that there was an undercount of Vokkaliga community and demanded that the government reject the survey report and reconduct the census. The petition of the sangha was signed by leaders from across parties, including Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and the former Chief Minister and JD(S) State president H.D. Kumaraswamy.

The mahasabha in its petition, on Friday, said that many of its members had complained that the enumerators of the caste census had not approached their families for details and that complaints over the survey being prepared in the office had been made. “Out of fear of losing out on the reservation, many Veerashaiav/Lingayats had only entered their sub-caste names. On the other hand, there are doubts about the entries made regarding other castes. There is no mechanism for random testing to ascertain facts. We do not want to snatch away any other community’s rights.”

The mahasabha also said that since the survey report is now eight years old, it would not be ideal to accept the caste survey report and instead a fresh survey should be conducted.