KARNATAKA: A New Quota Calculus

The clamour among Other Backward Class (OBC) groups in Karnataka for a larger slice of reservations for education and employment ran into a novel twist in the last week of December. Wary of upsetting two of the dominant castes in the state-Lingayats and Vokkaligas-especially with a state election to face in about four months, the Basavaraj Bommai government moved quickly to acquiesce to their demands for a higher share of reservation quota. However, it professed to do this by carrying out a reshuffle of the existing OBC reservation categoriesa surprise move that has thrown up more questions than answers.

- Ajay Sukumaran

The plethora of reservation demands from various communities has been a Pandora's Box that Karnataka's ruling BJP has been cautious about. But it opened one up in October by issuing an ordinance to increase the reservation for scheduled castes and tribes from the existing 18 per cent to 24 per cent. This was based on a report by a committee set up by the previous government in 2019 to examine a long-pending demand to raise SC/ST reservations given that they now covered over 150 castes and that their component populations had increased anyway. However, this additional 6 per cent took Karnataka's total reservation (including the 32 per cent set aside for OBCs) beyond the Supreme Court's 50 per cent limit, which it was already at.