BJP slams Telangana govt for including Thomas Piketty in panel to study caste data

Hyderabad, March 15 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Saturday slammed the Congress government in Telangana for including French economic Thomas Piketty in an expert committee appointed to analyse the data collected during the recent caste survey. 

Rajya Sabha MP and BJP national spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi asked why India’s sensitive social data was being handed over to a foreigner.

He stated that the Congress government's decision to appoint a foreign economic expert to interpret the caste-based survey raises serious concerns.

"I also want to ask the Congress Party why India's sensitive social data is being handed over to a foreigner. Additionally, I question why they have chosen Thomas Piketty, whose economic inequality analysis model has been widely debated. His approach reportedly favours high taxation on the wealthy while exempting certain privileged groups,” he said.

Sudhanshu Trivedi asked the Congress the party if it doubts the competence of Indian economic experts. “Are there no economic experts in Telangana that they had to choose foreigner Thomas Piketty? India has no shortage of economic experts, with many holding top global positions," he said.

"I also want to ask the Congress Party why they have consistently aligned with foreign entities over national interests. First, they stood with foreign media against India's media. Then, they sided with foreign agencies to attack India's economy. During elections, they were seen indirectly aligning with suspicious foreign forces. Before every parliamentary session, they appeared alongside foreign influencers,” added the BJP MP.

BJP national spokesperson G.V.L Narasimha Rao alleged that the decision of the Telangana government and its congress Chief Minister Revanth Reddy has a sinister agenda. “An expert committee constituting 11 members has been constituted to study the caste census conducted by the state and it has one French economist Thomas Piketty to analyse and offer insights into the survey,” he said.

The state government on March 12 constituted an 11-member independent expert working group headed by former Supreme Court Justice B. Sudarshan Reddy to analyse and interpret the data collected during the Socio, Economic, Education, Employment, Political and Caste Survey 2024 (SEEEPC survey), also known as caste survey.

The other members of the panel are Prof Kancha Ilaiah, Prof Shantha Sinha, Prof Himanshu, Dr Sukhadeo Thorat, Nikhil Dey, Prof. Bhangya Bhukya, Prof. Purushotham Reddy, Prof. Jean Dreze, Prof. Thomas Piketty and Praveen Chakravarty.

An Advisory Committee constituted by the Planning Department in February decided to constitute an independent expert working group to carry out an analysis of data collected during the SEEEPC Survey 2024 conducted by the government for the formulation of evidence-based policies for various social sectors in the State.

As per the Government Order, the expert working group will analyse and interpret the data of the survey and submit a report to the government within a month.

The survey was conducted in November-December 2024 to assess the economic, social, educational, political and caste status of all households across the state.

As many as 3,54,75,554 people were covered under the 50-day-long survey. A total of 1.12 crore families, including 66,99,602 families in rural areas and 45,15,532 families in urban areas, were covered.

On February 4, the government placed the findings of the survey in the Assembly. It said that 96.9 per cent of the households in the state were covered. About 16 lakh people (3.1 per cent) opted out due to various reasons.

Following the questions raised by the opposition parties over the accuracy of the data, the government decided to conduct another round of surveys last month to cover people who could not participate in the survey earlier.

Those who could not participate in the survey for various reasons were asked to share their details with the enumerators.

The opposition questioned the decline in the population of Backward Classes from 61 per cent (including Muslim Backward Classes) as revealed in the integrated household survey conducted in 2014 to 56.33 per cent in the caste survey conducted in November-December 2024.

The caste survey report revealed that the Backward Classes account for 56.33 per cent of the state’s population, of whom 10.08 per cent are Backward Class Muslims.

According to the survey report, 17.43 per cent of the population are Scheduled Castes (SCs), 10.45 per cent Scheduled Tribes (STs) and 12.56 per cent Muslims, of which 2.48 per cent are Other Caste (OC) Muslims. The OCs make up 13.31 per cent of the total population.