Hyderabad: Caste census and the move to enhance reservations for Backward Classes (BCs) dominated Telangana politics in 2025. Sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes (SCs), two Cabinet expansions, the Congress party’s victory in the Jubilee Hills Assembly bypoll, and its strong showing in the recently conducted Gram Panchayat elections were among the other major political developments of the year.
The Socio-Economic, Education, Employment, Political and Caste (SEEEPC) Survey, launched in late 2024, continued into January 2025. The 60-day-long exercise revealed that Backward Classes account for 56.33 per cent of Telangana’s population.
The survey, which covered 96.9 per cent of the population — 3,54,77,554 people — showed that 17.43 per cent are Scheduled Castes (SCs), 10.45 per cent Scheduled Tribes (STs), and 13.31 per cent Other Castes (OCs). According to the findings, Muslims constitute 12.56 per cent of the state’s population, of whom 10.08 per cent fall under the BC category.
The Congress government conducted the caste census to fulfil its election promise of social justice, in line with party leader Rahul Gandhi’s slogan, “Jis ki jitni abadi, uska utna haq” (rights proportionate to population).
Telangana claimed to be the first state in the country to conduct a caste census. “We have done what nobody has done for 100 years. Telangana model is the role model for the country,” said Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy.
Rahul Gandhi described the caste survey conducted in Telangana as a milestone for social justice in the country, stating that it would define how a national caste census should be carried out.
However, the government came under sharp attack from the opposition Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the survey findings. Both parties alleged a decline in the BC population since 2014 and demanded clarity on how the BC population had fallen to 56.33 per cent (including Muslim BCs) from 61 per cent, as recorded in an integrated household survey conducted by the then BRS government.
Adding to the embarrassment for the ruling party, its own MLC, Teenmaar Mallanna, publicly rejected the caste survey report and burnt a copy of it. He was subsequently suspended for his actions.
Based on the caste survey data, the state legislature passed two Bills to increase BC reservations to 42 per cent in education, employment, and local bodies. The Bills were forwarded to the Centre for inclusion in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution, as the total reservation would breach the 50 per cent cap.
With the Centre taking no action on the Bills, the Chief Minister, along with Cabinet colleagues and party MPs, staged a dharna at Jantar Mantar in Delhi to exert pressure. Revanth Reddy also sought an appointment with President Droupadi Murmu to submit a memorandum seeking her approval for the Bills.
In the absence of Central approval, the state government moved to enhance BC reservations in local bodies to 42 per cent through an executive order. The move faced legal challenges, with the High Court staying the order and the Supreme Court dismissing the government’s appeal.
The legal hurdles further delayed rural local body elections. With Central grants of Rs 3,000 crore for Gram Panchayats set to end by March 2026, the government had no option but to conduct the polls. However, it decided to await final High Court orders on the 42 per cent BC reservation before holding elections for Mandal Parishad Territorial Constituencies (MPTCs) and Zilla Parishad Territorial Constituencies (ZPTCs).
Sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes was another major development during the year. Telangana became the first state to announce the implementation of the Supreme Court order allowing sub-classification of SCs for equitable distribution of reservation.
A one-man commission was appointed, which collected empirical data and recommended categorisation of SCs into three groups. The Telangana Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservations) Bill, 2025, was unanimously passed by the State Assembly in March. The legislation divided 59 SC communities into three groups for the implementation of the 15 per cent reservation.
Chief Minister Revanth Reddy termed the passage of the Bill a historic step for social justice, noting that the movement for SC sub-categorisation was over 30 years old.
Claimed as a follow-up to the caste census, the long-awaited expansion of the State Cabinet took place in June with the induction of three ministers — G. Vivek Venkataswamy, Adluri Laxman Kumar, and Vakiti Srihari. Vivek Venkataswamy, a former MP and son of former Union Minister G. Venkataswamy, and Adluri Laxman Kumar belong to the Scheduled Castes, while Vakiti Srihari is from the Backward Classes.
This marked the first Cabinet expansion since the formation of the government on December 7, 2023, when the Chief Minister and 11 ministers were sworn in.
A second Cabinet expansion followed in November, with former Indian cricket captain Mohammed Azharuddin being inducted amid the campaign for the Jubilee Hills Assembly byelection. Azharuddin became the first Muslim minister in the Revanth Reddy Cabinet, amid mounting criticism over the Congress government’s failure to provide Muslim representation for nearly two years.
As none of the Congress party’s Muslim candidates were elected in the November 2023 Assembly elections, Cabinet representation for Muslims had been delayed. Azharuddin, who had lost from Jubilee Hills in 2023, was again aspiring for the party ticket in the byelection. However, the party leadership opted not to field him, instead nominating him to the Legislative Council and subsequently inducting him into the Cabinet.
Azharuddin’s induction drew sharp criticism from the BJP, which termed it an attempt by the Congress government to influence Muslim voters, who constitute over 30 per cent of the electorate in Jubilee Hills.
In the byelection, Congress candidate V. Naveen Yadav defeated BRS nominee Maganti Sunitha by nearly 25,000 votes. The byelection was necessitated by the death of Sunitha’s husband, BRS leader Maganti Gopinath.
The victory helped Revanth Reddy consolidate his position, as he led the party to wrest the Jubilee Hills seat from the BRS. The win also provided a significant boost to the Congress ahead of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) elections.
Towards the end of the year, the ruling party took another strategic decision by merging 27 urban local bodies with the GHMC, making it the largest municipal body in the country in terms of both area and population. With Congress traditionally weak in Greater Hyderabad, the move was seen as an attempt to counter the BRS by consolidating surrounding gram panchayats and municipalities.
The Congress party’s victory in the Gram Panchayat elections proved to be another major boost for the Chief Minister. Out of 12,727 Gram Panchayats, Congress-backed candidates won 6,822 seats (53.60 per cent), while BRS secured 3,519 seats (27.64 per cent). BJP-backed candidates won only 703 seats (5.52 per cent), while independents and others claimed 1,654 seats (12.99 per cent).
Revanth Reddy claimed that Congress and Congress rebels together won 8,335 Gram Panchayats, accounting for nearly 66 per cent of the total. According to him, an analysis of the results showed Congress leading in 87 of the 94 Assembly constituencies, with BRS ahead in six and BJP in one.
On December 7, the Congress government completed two years in office. To mark the occasion, it hosted the Telangana Rising Global Summit. By choosing Bharat Future City as the venue, the Chief Minister sought to highlight his flagship vision project.
The highlight of the two-day summit was the unveiling of the Telangana Rising Vision 2047 document, which set an ambitious target of transforming Telangana into a $3 trillion economy by 2047, with an interim milestone of $1 trillion by 2034.
The document outlined a roadmap based on three sector-specific zones — CURE (Core Urban Region Economy), PURE (Peri Urban Region Economy), and RARE (Rural Agri Region Economy). To achieve these goals, the state proposed several game-changing projects, including Bharat Future City, Musi River rejuvenation, a Dry Port, a 12-lane expressway connecting the Dry Port to Krishnapatnam Sea Port in Andhra Pradesh, and bullet train corridors linking Hyderabad with Bengaluru and Chennai via Amaravati.
(IANS)
