Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) leaders Talasani Srinivas Yadav and Dasoju Sravan have criticised the State government for using different sets of statistics to finalise reservations for various social groups in local body elections.
Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, they recalled that the Congress party had promised to implement 42% reservation for backward classes in local body elections within six months of coming to power. Instead, the government initiated a caste census a year later, and the leaders alleged that the exercise was not carried out properly anywhere in the State.
They pointed out that even Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy had admitted in the Assembly that details of 62,000 persons could not be obtained and that the exercise had to be repeated to cover those left out. Yet, the final statistics were never revised. Instead, State Congress leaders staged a dharna at Jantar Mantar, and the government later issued two Government Orders in haste, based on what the BRS leaders described as inaccurate data.
They questioned the logic of using the 2024 caste census figures for BC reservations in gram panchayat elections while relying on 2011 census data for SC and ST reservations. Despite spending ₹160 crore on the caste census, they said, the government had reduced the reported BC population from 51% to 46%.
