The Aryavarth Express
Agency (Telangana): On a day when Prime Minister Narendra Modi campaigned in Telangana, the Congress questioned his stance on the caste census after he promised a sub-quota for the Madiga caste. Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh wondered if this was another of his “jumlas” (rhetoric).
Jairam Ramesh raised several issues, including the unfulfilled promise of a rail coach factory at Kazipet and the failure to deliver the Bayyaram steel plant. He posted on X (formerly Twitter), “Today’s questions for the PM as he heads to Telangana: Where is the rail coach factory at Kazipet? Why did the PM fail to deliver the Bayyaram Steel Plant and ITIR? In the absence of a Census or a Caste Census, is the PM’s promise for a Madiga sub-quota just a jumla?”
Ramesh accused the prime minister of paying only lip service to the Madiga community’s long-standing demand for a sub-quota. He pointed out that the best the PM has promised is a ‘panel’ to look into the demand, which has not materialized even after five months. Simultaneously, the Prime Minister has refused to endorse a socioeconomic caste census, which could provide essential data on the socioeconomic status of the Madiga community.
Ramesh highlighted that the prime minister has not conducted the usual decadal census due in 2021, which would have provided information on the Scheduled Castes’ population in Telangana. The Congress Nyay Patra is committed to conducting such a census nationally, and the Congress government in Telangana has already begun preparations for a state-level census, he claimed.
Ramesh asked the prime minister to clarify his stance on the proposal for a caste census and how he plans to implement sub-quotas for the Madiga community without it, using the hashtag ‘ChuppiTodoPradhanMantriji’.
Ramesh also criticized the BJP for failing to establish a rail coach factory at Kazipet, a promise made in their 2014 Lok Sabha and Telangana assembly election manifestos. The central government released Rs 40 crore for the project, and the Telangana government allocated 60 acres of land. However, in 2016, the Minister of State for Railways, Manoj Singh, announced that there was no scope for setting up a coach factory anywhere in the country. Despite this, a coach factory was set up in Maharashtra before the 2019 assembly elections, and an electric locomotive plant was announced in Gujarat in 2022.
In December 2022, the Centre clarified again that no plant would be built in Kazipet but later announced a coach factory in Assam. Before the Telangana assembly elections last year, the Centre reversed its decision again, and the PM laid the foundation stone for a railway wagon overhauling centre in Kazipet. Almost a year later, this plan has also failed to materialize.
Ramesh questioned why the PM and the BJP have repeatedly deceived the people of Telangana and whether a railway plant would ever be built in Kazipet.
He further criticized the BJP’s neglect of the Bayyaram Steel Plant and the Hyderabad Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) projects, both promised under the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act of 2014. These projects could have brought significant investments to Telangana and created numerous job opportunities for the state’s youth. The ITIR alone was expected to attract Rs 2.19 lakh crore of investments and create direct employment for 15 lakh people.
Chief Minister Revanth Reddy also highlighted that while these projects were being scrapped, significant projects like the bullet train and Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) were allocated to Gujarat.
Ramesh questioned the Modi government’s neglect of development projects in Telangana and whether there is no end to the prime minister’s step-motherly treatment of opposition-ruled states.
