Increase reservation for SCs and STs, Congress urges Karnataka govt

Bengaluru: The Congress on Thursday urged the Karnataka government to take immediate steps to fulfill the reservation demands made by Scheduled Castes and Tribes (SC/STs), by implementing the Justice H N Nagamohan Das Commission report at the earliest.

The Justice Das-headed panel submitted its report to the government in July 2020 recommending hiking the quota for SCs from 15 percent to 17 percent and for STs from three percent to 7.5 percent.

”SC/STs have been demanding that reservation has to be increased in accordance with the population. The SC/ST population as per 2011 Census is 24.10 percent (17.15 percent SC and ST is 6.95 percent), while the reservation is 18 percent. So, during the Congress-JD(S) coalition government, the Justice Nagamohan Das Commission was constituted, but by the time it submitted the report that government had collapsed,” Siddaramaiah said.

During the recently concluded Assembly session, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai had said an all-party meeting would be convened to discuss the next steps on fulfilling reservation demands made by SC/STs, as he wants to take everyone into confidence before taking a decision on demands made by various communities.

Speaking to reporters here, Siddaramaiah pointed out that it has been two years and three months since the report was submitted and the BJP government which came to power subsequently, has neither accepted nor implemented it till now. Hence, the communities are protesting, especially the ‘Valmiki’ seers (STs) who are on a dharna for some time now, he said.

”They (BJP) are against reservation, they are anti-Dalit, minorites and backward communities. They gave 10 percent reservation for the economically weaker within a day by passing a legislation in the parliament, but in this case they are delaying and pushing time,” the Congress leader said, as he urged the government to implement it at the earliest by following due procedure.

The Congress is likely to put forth its view during an all-party meeting convened by the Chief Minister on the issue.

Karnataka PCC president D K Shivakumar demanded that the state government immediately take a decision on the quota by implementing the Commission report and send it to the Centre.

He urged that the Union government, following the state’s recommendation, should promulgate an ordinance immediately to implement it, instead of waiting for the Parliament session.

AICC General Secretary in-charge of Karnataka Randeep Singh Surjewala said the Bommai government is ”deaf” towards the demand of SC/ST communities, and accused it of delaying the reservation to these communities by constituting another committee under Justice Subhash Adi to look into the issue.

”BJP is anti SC/ST…for about two years and three months this report is with you, why didn’t you implement it? Our demand is that the Justice Nagamohan Das Commission report is implemented at the earliest,” he added.