Splashed across the front pages of major newspapers in Karnataka on Sunday, October 9, was an advertisement issued by the BJP government in the state heralding a “historical decision by the government of Karnataka”.
On the eve of Valmiki Jayanti – the birth anniversary of Maharishi Valmiki, an icon of the Scheduled Tribe Valmiki Nayak community, falling on October 9 – the BJP government in Karnataka sprung a political surprise by announcing a decision to enhance reservations for SC/STs. The decision was taken at a Cabinet meeting on October 8, accepting the recommendations of the Justice Nagamohan Das panel, which had been set up during the Congress-JDS coalition in 2018, to increase the SC/ST quota.
The state Cabinet unanimously agreed to hike reservation for SCs to 17% (from 15%) and for STs to 7% (from 3%),” Bommai said after the meeting.
The move to implement the panel’s recommendations, submitted 18 months earlier, is seen as a bid by the BJP to retain the support of the Valmiki Nayak community, against Congress attempts to woo them over.
The largest among the nearly 52 tribes in the state, the Valmiki Nayaks have predominantly backed the BJP. In fact, it was BJP CM B S Yediyurappa who first declared Valmiki Jayanti as a state holiday in 2011. In 2019, BJP minister B Sreeramulu promised to bring in enhanced quotas – a long-standing demand of the community – if the BJP came to power.
Among the SC community, a large section known as the SC (left) group is considered to enjoy the BJP’s support, mostly because the more dominant SC (right) section of Dalits has largely allied with the Congress owing to strong leaders from the community such as Mallikarjun Kharge.
The Bommai government’s decision to increase SC/ST quotas comes in the midst of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra, currently in Karnataka, which is scheduled to go through tribal and SC-dominated areas in the state such as Chitradurga, Ballari and Raichur this week.
It is a political decision by the BJP. All these days, they slept over the Justice Nagamohan Das commission report. They have suddenly woken up. This is the effect of the Bharat Jodo Yatra, price rise, and the corruption allegations against the BJP. They have all of a sudden become active on this issue,” V S Ugrappa, a former Congress MP and member of the Valmiki Nayak community, said.
The largely muted response of the Opposition – the Congress and JDS – is indication that the BJP move is well-calculated, with the 2023 state polls barely eight months away.
“There will certainly be an impact. Even after a year of being in power, nothing was done. In the changed scenario, they have taken this decision,” a senior Congress leader said. A section of the Congress also feels that the BJP has capitalised on “an issue that the Congress party did not muster enough courage to execute”. “It was a mistake by our party,” a Congress leader said.
However, there is some apprehension among politicians that the BJP’s move could “boomerang” if no serious efforts are made to ensure that the decision stands up to the scrutiny of law and that demands of the other communities such as the Panchamasali Lingayats — to be included in the OBC category to avail higher reservations– are not addressed similarly.
The immediate legal hurdle for the hike is the Supreme Court ceiling on quotas of 50 per cent. As done by Tamil Nadu to increase the quota to 69 per cent, the Karnataka government might seek a constitutional amendment for the quota provisions to be included in the Nineth Schedule of the Constitution, and hence beyond judicial scrutiny. This would require the BJP government at the centre to push the constitutional amendment.
“They have to bring a Bill wherein they have to assign reasons and make provisions as per para 810 of the Indira Sawhney Supreme Court case, which specified that only under exceptional circumstances, on the basis of data, reservation can be enhanced from an upper limit of 50%,” Ugrappa said.
The Bommai government has indicated that it will, for the time being, issue an executive order to enhance the SC-ST quotas in the government and that a decision for a constitutional amendment to hike the ceiling in quotas will be considered later.
We have a lot of demands for the inclusion of different communities in the backward classes category, for inclusion in the ST category. We will discuss all issues and finalise the quota ceiling issue,” law minister J C Madhuswamy said, adding that the Central government has also exceeded the 50% limit after its 10% EWS reservation.
The present BJP government constituted the Justice Subhash Adi committee in July 2021 to take further decisions regarding quotas and to look into the demands of reservations of various communities – including the Panchamasali Lingayats – a key sub-sect of the dominant Lingayat community which supports the BJP. More decisions on enhancing quotas for different caste groups could be in the pipeline ahead of the 2023 state polls.
Madhuswamy said the government was looking at “the demands of all communities for enhanced quotas”. “We have decided on one of the pressing issues of the enhancement of the SC/ST quota… Our party and all parties promised to enhance reservations in accordance with the population of these communities. We have confined ourselves to this for the time being,” the BJP minister said.
He added that the government was not “provoking other communities” and that “quota issues will not be considered without a proper scientific report”. “In the case of the SC/ST communities, there are three to four reports that are before us. We have been slow in implementation,” Madhuswamy said.
He added: “We are not going to touch the existing quota but we are going to increase the reservations beyond 50%. It may affect the general category to some extent but we are not going to touch the quotas of the OBC.” Bommai also said that “in the coming days, decisions regarding internal reservation among the SCs/STs will be taken in due consultation with experts and leaders of all parties”.
Background
The issue of enhancement of SC and ST quotas in the state was first raised in 2015 during Siddaramaiah’s tenure as CM by Congress legislators citing an increase in the population of the communities since the 2011 Census.
A caste survey was conducted under the Kantharaju commission then, but its recommendations were not accepted by the Congress government in light of the 2018 state elections.
Congress legislators in the JDS-Congress coalition in power between 2018-2019 managed to push for the constitution of the Justice Nagamohan Das commission. The commission submitted its first report when the coalition government collapsed. The BJP came to power under Yediyurappa’s leadership in July 2019.
The commission made seven recommendations, including enhancing the percentage of reservations from 15% to 17% for SCs and 3% to 7% for ST’s seeking the protection of law to overcome the 50% limit on reservations imposed by the Supreme Court, among others.