At a time when some of the major players in the INDIA alliance of Opposition parties are pushing for a nationwide caste census in an attempt to find an ideological counter-narrative to the BJP’s Hindutva politics, the Andhra Pradesh government led by YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) of Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy is all set to begin a comprehensive caste census on Friday to enumerate all castes in the state.

Initially, the scope of the exercise was limited to enumerating the 139 Backward Class (BC) communities but now it has been expanded to cover all castes in the state. To conduct the exercise, the government will extensively deploy the village secretariat system along with the volunteer system.

Meanwhile, on Friday evening Jagan Reddy will unveil a 125-foot statue of Dr B R Ambedkar in Vijayawada. The statue, constructed for an estimated Rs 404 crore, stands on an 81-foot pedestal, making it a 206-foot monument.

In context: Last April, Jagan Mohan Reddy forwarded to the Central government an Assembly resolution asking it to simultaneously conduct caste census and population census but learnt that it would not happen anytime soon. The state government then decided to go ahead with the BC caste census to comprehensively enumerate backward classes region-wise, profession-wise, and under other parameters such as socio-economic status.

The government said at the time that it had committed to allocating Rs 15,000 crore annually for the welfare of the backward classes and would be able to direct resources to communities that need them the most if the population of each backward class group was known.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set for a whirlwind tour of three states on Friday. Making his second visit to Maharashtra in as many weeks, the PM will inaugurate and lay the foundation stone of multiple development projects in Solapur around 10.45 am. In this week’s State Watch column, Shubhangi Khapre attempts to decipher the political signals from the PM’s Maharashtra focus.

The PM will then travel to Bengaluru, where at around 2.45 am he will inaugurate a new state-of-the-art Boeing India Engineering and Technology Centre (BIETC) campus. According to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the 43-acre campus has been built for Rs. 1,600 crore and is Boeing’s largest such investment outside the US. Modi will also launch the Boeing Sukanya Programme that aims to support the entry of more girl children into the country’s growing aviation sector. The programme will create STEM Labs at 150 planned locations to help spark interest in STEM careers, according to the PMO.

The PM will then head to Chennai at around 6 pm. There, he will be the chief guest at the opening ceremony of the sixth Khelo India Youth Games 2023.

As the party’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra makes its way through Assam, the Lok Sabha election committee of the party’s Karnataka unit will meet for the first round of discussions in Bengaluru.

Deputy CM and state Congress president D K Shivakumar has said former BJP leaders Jagadish Shettar and Laxman Savadi who joined the party from the BJP before last year’s Assembly elections have also been invited to the meeting. Ministers in charge of districts have collected opinions from the areas under their jurisdiction and all that will be discussed at the meeting, according to Shivakumar.

Asked about some ministers being reluctant to contest the Lok Sabha elections, Shivakumar told reporters on Thursday, “If the party wants, everyone has to contest, whether it is me or anyone else.” The Deputy CM has expressed confidence about the party winning at least 25 of the 28 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka.

Meanwhile, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and his Punjab counterpart Bhagwant Mann are in Goa along with the party’s Rajya Sabha MP Raghav Chaddha and national organisation secretary Sandeep Pathak.

On Friday, Kejriwal is scheduled to travel to the Assembly constituencies of Benaulim and Velim that the party won in the 2022 Assembly polls and review the work of the MLAs. The Delhi CM is also expected to address leaders and volunteers near Panaji and take stock of preparations for the Lok Sabha polls. The Delhi CM’s Goa visit comes at a time when has skipped an Enforcement Directorate (ED) summons asking him to appear before it on Thursday in connection with the Delhi excise policy case. Kejriwal was issued the summons last week for the fourth time. He has alleged it is a “BJP ploy” to stop him from campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls.

— With PTI inputs