Ensure no injustice to any community while providing internal reservation among SCs: BJP

Bengaluru, Aug 19 (PTI) Karnataka BJP President B Y Vijayendra on Tuesday urged the Congress government in the state to ensure that no injustice is done to any community, while providing internal reservation among Scheduled Castes.

The Karnataka cabinet is likely to discuss the recommendations of Justice H N Nagmohan Das Commission report, aimed at providing internal reservation among SCs, at a special meeting on Tuesday.

The commission, headed by a retired judge of the Karnataka High Court, has submitted the 1,766-page report to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on August 4, which was placed before the cabinet on August 7.

"The Siddaramaiah government has been discussing internal reservation for the last 2.5 years, but still, they have not given any solution. During the previous BJP regime, the then Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai had increased SC reservation from 15 to 17 per cent and for ST it was increased from 3 to 7 per cent," Vijayendra said.

Speaking to reporters here, he said, but the then leader of the opposition Siddaramaiah, did not accept the BJP government's stand and tried to create confusion.

"But, today Siddaramaiah himself is the Chief Minister and it is the responsibility of the Chief Minister to give justice to all 101 SC communities. BJP's stand is very clear that whatever the previous BJP government had decided, the same thing has to be implemented by Siddaramaiah and no injustice should happen to any SC community," he added.

The internal reservation is aimed at slicing the 17 per cent reservation matrix among 101 scheduled castes.

Just ahead of the 2023 Assembly polls, the previous BJP government's cabinet had taken a decision on internal reservation, by recommending to the central government a six per cent internal quota for SC (Left), 5.5 per cent for SC (Right), 4.5 per cent for "touchables" (Banjara, Bhovi, Korcha, Kuruma etc) and one per cent for others.

Vijayendra said the state cabinet should take precautions to ensure that once the state government takes a stand on internal reservation, no SC community should hit the streets alleging injustice.

"Everybody is hoping that they (state government) will take the appropriate decision, the same decision taken by the previous BJP government," he added.

The Siddaramaiah government, in November last year, had appointed the commission headed by Justice Nagmohan Das to recommend internal reservation among SCs by gathering empirical data, after the Supreme Court last year allowed the states to provide internal reservation, and the State Cabinet agreed to implement internal reservation.

In a landmark verdict delivered by the Supreme Court on August 1 last year, it held that states are constitutionally empowered to make sub-classifications within the SCs, which form a socially heterogeneous class, for granting reservation to uplift castes that are socially and educationally more backward.

A section of SCs, like 'SC Left', have been demanding internal reservation, alleging that only a few influential sub-castes were taking away a majority of the benefits, while many communities were still marginalised. PTI KSU ADB