Kerala dept admits ‘mistake’ in data on students not giving religion, caste info

The Kerala education department on Thursday admitted there were some “glaring mistakes” in the data provided by minister C Raveendranath a day earlier on students not filling the caste and religion columns in admission forms.

The department’s response came after several schools questioned the figure that was released by the Kerala education minister in the state assembly.

Speaking in the Kerala assembly a day earlier, Raveendranath had said that 123,630 students between Class 1 and 10 had left the columns asking for an applicant’s caste and religion blank during this academic year.

However, some of the schools mentioned in the minister’s list are run by religious institutions and have questioned the legitimacy of the data presented by him.

According to the information presented by Raveendranath in the House, 3,000 students from six schools in north Kerala’s Kasargode district left caste and religion columns blank. However, many schools, including Moppila UP School in Uppala and St Paul’s School in Thrikkaripur said that not a single student from their institutes had opted out of filling the said two columns.

Schools from Malappuram, Kozhikode and Ernakulam districts echoed similar views.

“Out of 1,050 students of our school, more than 200 were said to have not filled the columns. The information is absolutely wrong. We have no idea how it happened,” said Yahya Palliserry, PTA president of Malappuram district’s Karippol UP School.

The state education minister was not immediately available for comments.

A general curiosity prevailed the day seers purified the chief minister’s bungalow in Lucknow with mantras and Ganga jal for its new incumbent Mahant Yogi Adityanath.

But in the countryside, a section of Dalits were enraged by this first-of-its-kind “grih pravesh” ceremony at the official home of a chief minister, vacated by Akhilesh Yadav, a backward. They raised the issue on social media and at meetings, empathising with “pichhda Akhilesh”.

Soon, they started feeling discriminated and deprived in the new dispensation. Their share in power lessened. “We would have taken to the streets had the house been vacated by Behenji (Mayawati). The Yadavs did not protest but the issue went viral on social media. It reduced the anger against Akhilesh Yadav, triggering a discussion on the need to reconsolidate the ‘bahujan samaj’. After all he is an OBC and there is little difference in the social status of a Dalit and a poor Yadav,” Dalit activist Dr Satish Prakash says.

The chief minister remained oblivious to the reaction that his “routine ritual” evoked in the

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: STATE EDUCATION MINISTER HAD SAID THAT 123,630 STUDENTS HAD LEFT CASTE, RELIGION COLUMNS BLANK DURING THIS YEARS ADMISSION PROCESS LUCKNOW: