BENGALURU: The CM Siddaramaiah cabinet on Monday did not officially discuss the contentious Employment of Local Candidates Bill to ensure job reservation for Kannadigas in the private sector. But it decided to pass a resolution in the ongoing joint session of the legislature to oppose NEET as it thought to mete out injustice to Kannadigas.
The state government is likely to follow the Tamil Nadu model to urge the Union government to scrap NEET and allow the state government to take up medical admissions based on Class 12 marks, as was done before NEET was introduced. Medical Education Minister Dr Sharan Prakash Patil briefed the cabinet on NEET, sources said.
The cabinet also decided to pass a resolution against the ‘One nation, One election’ proposal, which is under consideration by the Union government. The cabinet discussed the issue of ED officials allegedly putting pressure on the former managing director of the ST Corporation, Kallesh, to name ex-minister B Nagendra in the alleged multi-crore scam.
Informal discussion on quota bill, 14-hr workday
The cabinet informally discussed the job reservation for Kannadigas in the private sector, over which ministers were at loggerheads. Labour Minister Santosh Lad was in favour, arguing that it would help Kannadigas and tried to convince the chief minister. Whereas Large and Medium Industries Minister MB Patil and RDPR and IT-BT Minister Priyank Kharge were against it, saying it will have an adverse impact on the growth of industries, sources said. The CM decided to take it up for discussion officially in the next cabinet meeting.
On another controversial proposal of increasing workday from 10 hours to 14, the cabinet decided to hold discussions with stakeholders, a source said.
