BANGALORE: The ruling BJP legislators from the H-K region are mounting pressure on the state to accommodate people from the backward area in key posts that are lying vacant in constitutional bodies like the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) and the Information Commission.
While one vacancy in the KPSC is yet to be filled, there are about three state Information Commissioners’ posts remaining vacant in the Information Commission, set up under the Right to Information Act-2005.
The BJP legislators from the H-K region, including Doddppa Gouda Patil Naribol, Prabhu Chavan and Karadi Sanganna, have reportedly decided to appeal to CM D V Sadananda Gowda to give priority to the region while filling up the posts when they would meet him at Hubli on January 28.
Speaking to Express, Doddappa Gouda Patil said the legislators would present a joint memorandum to the CM on the matter. “We will not push any particular names for the posts, and leave the choice of the candidates to the government,” he said. Two ministers from the region — Revu Naik Belamagi (Animal Husbandry) and Narasimha Nayak (small scale industries) — have also reportedly backed the legislators on the issue.
At present, only one among the 10 KPSC members was from the H-K region, while there was no representation of the region in the six-member Information Commission, Patil said, and added that only three persons from the H-K region had served in the KPSC in the last six decades.
Belamagi said there was a growing feeling among the people of the region that they were let down by the successive state governments, and there was a need to remove such perception.
Referring to Tuesday’s bandh called by the Hyderabad-Karnataka Action Committee demanding the Centre to amend Article 371 conferring special status to the region, the minister said, “We will support the demand for conferring special status under Article 371.”
With conferring of special status to the region, regional imbalance in recruitment to key posts in the state secretariat, Constitutional bodies and courts would also been corrected, Belamagi said.
Meanwhile, Hyderabad-Karnataka Action Committee chairman and former minister Vyjanath Patil said the committee members had toured all the districts and taluks in the region and mobilised support for Tuesday’s bandh call.