ST Reservation hike: BJP govt in Karnataka follows Telangana’s footsteps

What Telangana implements, other States replicate, BJP government in Karnataka too has decided to increase reservation for Scheduled Tribes.

Hyderabad: What Telangana implements, other States replicate. Barely a fortnight after the Telangana government’s move to increase reservation for Scheduled Tribes from six per cent to 10 per cent, the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Karnataka too has decided to follow suit.

Interestingly, the move comes more than two years after the Justice Nagamohan Das Committee, set up in 2019, submitted its report recommending such a hike in reservation to the Karnataka government.

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The impact of the move, by a BJP-led State government, with the Telangana government taking the lead, on the BJP-led union government is worth keeping an eye on, since the commitment of the Centre towards ensuring the welfare of dalits has been under the scanner for quite long now, especially after the manner in which it delayed approval for Telangana’s Bill.

On April 16, 2017, the Telangana Assembly had passed a Bill increasing the reservations for STs from six per cent to 10 per cent in education and employment. The Bill was sent to the union government for approval, besides seeking the President’s assent. On September 17, at the National Integration Day celebrations this year, Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao said the BJP government was deliberately delaying approval for the Bill for more than five years.

“It is up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to increase the quota for STs or turn it into a noose around his neck,” Chandrashekhar Rao said while announcing the hike in reservation. The State government soon issued orders as well increasing ST reservations from six per cent to 10 per cent.

Sensing backlash from the community, the BJP government in Karnataka, after a special cabinet meeting last week decided to increase reservation of SCs from 15 percent to 17 percent and STs from three per cent to seven per cent. The Justice Nagamohan Das Committee had submitted its report in July 2020.

“This will expose the double standards of BJP towards dalits welfare. Telangana Assembly had passed a Bill in 2017 and the Central government has been sitting on the Bill all these years. Though, it was a politically motivated move, the Karnataka government too decided to increase the reservations for dalits,” Centre for Dalit Studies chairman Mallepally Laxmaiah said.

“The BJP government at the Centre cannot come up with any excuses for delaying and will have to approve the increase in reservations,” he said.

Meanwhile, Justice Nagamohan Das was quoted in a recent report that the union government’s approval was not required for increasing the reservation and that the State government could implement the Bill immediately. Inclusion in the Ninth schedule was a protective measure, he said.

According to Justice Das, States like Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu had crossed the 50 per cent reservation cap.

Apart from the BJP government in Karnataka, the Jharkhand government last month has reportedly accepted a proposal for granting 77 per cent reservation in State government jobs for SC, ST, BC, OBC and Economically Weaker Sections.