Telangana Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Tuesday tabled the state’s caste survey in the Assembly, stating that the Congress had fulfilled its election promise within a year, The Indian Express reported.

Reddy said in the Assembly that there had been a demand from the historically Backward Classes that “they should be enumerated” and that the tabling of the survey was a “historical moment” for the state.

“For any policy to come into effect, there should be data to support it,” the chief minister said. “The data from the caste survey will be used to bring socio-political changes in the state.”

Reddy said that no one had tried to enumerate the Backward Classes in 75 years since Independence. “Congress leader Rahul Gandhi promised to enumerate different castes during his Bharat Jodo Yatra… We have fulfilled that promise,” he said.

Earlier in the day, the Cabinet had approved the survey report, which the state government has said will act as a roadmap for the development of the Backward Classes.

He said that the Cabinet had approved the conduct of the survey exactly a year ago on February 4, 2024.

The survey data released on Sunday showed that Backward Classes constituted 56.3% of Telangana’s population in Telangana. In absolute numbers, the population of the Backward Classes in the state stood at 1.9 crore.

As per the door-to-door household survey conducted in November and December, the Scheduled Castes comprise 17.4%, or 61.8 lakh, of the population and the Scheduled Tribes account for 10.4%, or 37 lakh persons. Other castes make up 15.7% of the population.

Muslims constitute about 12.5%, or 44.5 lakh, of the population. Of this, Backward Classes Muslims account for 10.08%, or 35.7 lakh persons, and Other Classes Muslims account for 2.4%, or 8.8 lakh persons.

The caste survey was one of the promises made by the Congress in Telangana ahead of the Assembly elections in December 2023. The party won the elections, defeating the Bharat Rashtra Samithi.

With the release of the report, Telangana became the third state to carry out such a survey after Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.