BENGALURU: With the momentum gaining for subclassification of Scheduled Caste quota, Home Minister Dr G Parameshwara has taken the responsibility of navigating the touchy issue to firewall the Congress government from rough weather.
Parameshwara, who is a Dalit leader, is likely to chair the meeting of SC community legislators on October 21 at Vidhana Soudha to take a final decision and to submit a report to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, sources said.
Social Welfare Minister Dr HC Mahadevappa, Food and Civil Supplies Minister KH Muniyappa, RDPR Minister Priyank Kharge, Backward Classes Welfare Minister Shivaraj Tangadagi, Assembly Deputy Speaker Rudrappa M Lamani, among others, are expected to attend the meeting.
Already, a committee headed by Malavalli MLA PM Narendraswamy, with members, including MLC Sudham Das, has held several rounds of deliberations on how to go about classifying the quota.
The committee feels that the decision taken by the previous Basavaraj Bommai cabinet is not scientific, a source said. The Bommai government had based its position on the report submitted by the then subcommittee headed by then Law Minister JC Madhu Swamy. The Bommai government increased the SC quota from 15 to 17 per cent and reallocated reservation, assuming that the SC population has increased, though there was no accurate data of different communities.
If the government releases the socio-economic and educational survey, also known as caste census, it will come in handy with the SC quota subclassification. The Siddaramaiah cabinet is meeting on October 18 to decide whether to make the caste census public.
“All leaders from the SC category agreed to the classification, but insisted that it should be scientific with accurate data. We will take all the leaders into confidence,” a legislator told TNIE.
Meanwhile, a group of SC (left) community leaders from Congress is planning to meet Rahul Gandhi, leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, as they feel the government is delaying the implementation of classification of quota despite a Supreme Court order of August 1.