HYDERABAD: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president B Mahesh Kumar Goud, Congress Working Committee member Koppula Raju and Minister Ponnam Prabhakar announced that the Congress would undertake a 100-day nationwide campaign for OBC rights, with Telangana serving as a model for caste enumeration.
Addressing a press conference at Gandhi Bhavan in Hyderabad on Saturday, Mahesh said the slogan given by Rahul Gandhi during his Bharat Jodo Yatra had now evolved into a movement. He said Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy had conducted a scientific caste survey in Telangana.
Koppula Raju said the Congress, Rahul Gandhi and AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge had been pressuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the past five years to conduct a caste census along with the population census. He said the party intended to turn the issue into a nationwide movement.
Raju said Telangana identified 134 OBC communities through its caste survey, unlike the Centre’s earlier survey, which had nearly 46 lakh caste names.
He said Congress would seek removal of the Supreme Court-imposed 50% reservation ceiling and warned that OBC women could lose out without accurate caste data.
Minister Ponnam Prabhakar said Telangana would successfully implement the AICC’s 100-day OBC rights campaign.
Calling Congress the champion of social justice, Prabhakar challenged BJP leaders from Telangana, including Bandi Sanjay Kumar, Eatala Rajender, Dharmapuri Arvind and Payal Shankar, to persuade their party’s central leadership to conduct an OBC caste census.