BENGALURU: Prominent leaders of the Veerashaiva and Vokkaliga communities met on Monday and demanded that the government completely scrap the Socio-educational and Economic Survey 2015 and conduct a fresh census.
Though the report itself has not been released yet, an unverified version of the ‘caste census’ that was ‘leaked’ last month has set the two communities at loggerheads with the government. According to this unverified data, the numbers of Vokkaliga and Veerashaiva communities are shown to be much less that they actually are, the leaders claim.
Members of both the communities, who attended the meeting, decried the census and said it was not done in a scientific manner and the report should not be released.
They have demanded that a fresh census be done as the present census was a result of political conspiracy and was only done to promote the Ahinda (acronym of minorities, backward classes and dalits) agenda of the government.
They questioned the logic behind the government spending `200 crore for the whole exercise. Some members also said that many households were left out of the census altogether and showing skewed numbers.
The unconfirmed data puts the Lingayat community at 59 lakh and the Vokkaliga community at 49 lakh. Members of the Vokkaliga community say they are about 1.10 crore, while Lingayats cite a higher number. The data that was circulated widely says the number scheduled caste comprising 180 sub castes were 1.08 crore, while three categories of scheduled tribe numbered around 95 lakh people.