Congress will launch 100-day OBC rights campaign: Koppula Raju

The Congress will launch a 100-day campaign for OBC rights across Telangana, demanding an immediate nationwide caste census and removal of the 50% ceiling on reservations, Congress Working Committee invitee Koppula Raju said on Saturday.

Speaking at Gandhi Bhavan along with Transport Minister Ponnam Prabhakar and TPCC president, Mr. Mahesh Kumar Goud, he said the slogan raised by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during his Bharat Jodo Yatra had evolved into a movement and that Telangana had emerged as a “role model” in conducting a scientific caste survey under Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy.

Mr. Raju said the Congress, Rahul Gandhi and party president Mallikarjun Kharge had been pressing Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the last five years to conduct a caste census along with the population census. The party now intended to turn the demand into a nationwide movement, he said.

He alleged that while Mr. Modi had announced that an OBC caste census would be conducted along with the population census, the Centre had not included an OBC enumeration in the census process. Union Home Minister Amit Shah had also stated in Parliament that an OBC caste census would be undertaken along with the family survey, but the relevant forms did not contain a provision for OBC enumeration, Mr. Raju claimed.

He contrasted this with Telangana’s caste survey, stating that the State government had consulted OBC caste associations and identified 134 OBC communities. “A proper OBC enumeration was conducted in Telangana,” he said.