Caste cauldron: Vokkaligas on warpath, seek quota by Jan 23

Earlier, the Panchamasali sect of the Lingayat community in the state had demanded reservation under 2A category

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Ahead of Assembly polls in Karnataka, now barely five months away, the state is fast turning into a community cauldron with almost every prominent community in the southern citadel of the BJP, vying for a bigger share of the reservation pie.

The latest community to up the ante for higher reservation are the Vokkaligas, who dominate in the southern parts of the state particularly in the Old Mysore region. Led by the seer of the prominent Adi Chunchungiri mutt, Swamy Nirmalanandanatha, the community leaders on Sunday set January 23 as the deadline for the fulfillment of their demand for hiking the reservation for their caste from four per cent to twelve per cent.

Earlier, the Panchamasali sect of the dominant Lingayat community in the state had demanded reservation under 2A while the Kurubas have also sought a higher quota for themselves. These communities have also warned of hitting the streets if their demands are not met by the government.

The spree of demands comes after the BJP government in the state decided to push the reservation limit above 50 per cent by hiking the quota for SCs and STs from 15% to 17% and 3% to 7 % respectively.

Justifying the demand of the Vokkaligas, Swamy Nirmalananda explained that the Vokkaligas accounted for anywhere between 16 per cent to 20 per cent of the population of the state, but had to make do with four per cent reservation.

He argued that the quota should be proportionate to their population and felt that if this did not happen, the community would suffer in terms of employment in future. Both the Congress and BJP will also have to find solutions to the demands made by leaders of various communities for prominent posts in the administration like that of CM and Deputy CM.

While state Congress chief DK Shivakumar has sent enough signals to his community, the Vokkaligas, seeking their wholehearted support in his endeavour to become CM if the Congress comes to power, the Valmiki community wants their leader B. Sriramulu to secure at least the post of Deputy CM in the BJP government.