BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah may lob the ball into the court of Congress high command to tackle the imbroglio surrounding the release of Socio Economic Educational Survey (SES-2015), popularly known as caste census.
The report that had been deferred twice was finally taken up at the cabinet meeting on Thursday. The reason for it was Siddaramaiah’s meeting with Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, who insisted on it, source said. Now, Siddaramaiah plans to go back to the high command, of which Rahul is a major part, and brief the top leaders of the developments that have taken place after the report was presented in the cabinet, sources said.
Siddaramaiah has also sensed that his ministers, especially those opposed to the caste census, may meet AICC president Mallikarjun Kharge and other high command leaders and complain against the census. To preempt that, the CM will collect the opinions of ministers on paper and forward it to the high command, sources said.
At the cabinet meeting, the ministers are said to have raised the issue of Congress getting a drubbing during the 2018 Assembly polls, reportedly because of Siddaramaiah’s proposal to give a separate religion status to Lingayats and Veerashaivas.
But Siddaramaiah argued that MB Patil, who initiated and pushed the proposal, won the polls, but SS Mallikarjun, son of Veerashaiva Mahasabha president Shamanur Shivashankarappa, who had vociferously opposed the move, lost.
Siddaramaiah is also getting the caste census data of each and every assembly constituency to prove that except for some 20-30 segments in the state, the rest of the seats are determined by AHINDA votes, sources said. AHINDA is an acronym for minorities, backward classes and Dalits, which has been cultivated politically by Siddaramaiah for years now.
“He wants to demystify the perception that the separate religion status issue was the reason for Congress’s debacle in 2018,” the sources added.