Congress will be punished in elections for its statement on scrapping quota for OBCs, says BJP

BENGALURU: The state unit of the BJP on Friday said that Congress will be punished in the upcoming Assembly elections after Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president D K Shivakumar said that the party will scrap the reservation given by the BJP to the Vokkaliga and Veerashaiva-Lingayat communities if it comes to power.

The official social media handle of Karnataka BJP on Twitter said, “DK Shivakumar clarified that they will cancel the reservation given to Vokkaliga, Veerashaiva-Lingayat, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. For appeasement politics, the right of these communities to be uprooted. INC Karnataka will be punished accordingly”.

The remarks came after D K Shivakumar on Friday said that if the Congress govt comes to power, it will cancel the reservation and will protect the interests of the minority community.

ಒಕ್ಕಲಿಗ, ವೀರಶೈವ-ಲಿಂಗಾಯತ, ಪರಿಶಿಷ್ಟ ಜಾತಿ ಹಾಗೂ ಪರಿಶಿಷ್ಟ ಪಂಗಡಗಳಿಗೆ ನೀಡಿದ ಮೀಸಲಾತಿಯನ್ನು ರದ್ದು ಮಾಡುತ್ತೇವೆ ಎಂದು @DKShivakumar ಸ್ಪಷ್ಟಪಡಿಸಿದ್ದಾರೆ.

ತುಷ್ಟೀಕರಣ ರಾಜಕಾರಣಕ್ಕಾಗಿ ಈ ಸಮುದಾಯಗಳ ಹಕ್ಕಿಗೆ ಚ್ಯುತಿ ತರುವ @INCKarnatakaದ ಹುನ್ನಾರಕ್ಕೆ ತಕ್ಕ ಶಾಸ್ತಿಯಾಗಲಿದೆ.#AntiHinduCongress https://t.co/O24L20kv9f

— BJP Karnataka (@BJP4Karnataka) April 7, 2023

Earlier in March, the Karnataka government decided to scrap the 4 per cent quota for minorities under the OBC quota and added it to the existing quota of two dominant communities of the poll-bound state. The 4 per cent reservation given to Muslims under the 2B classification of the OBC category will now be divided into two equal parts and added to the existing quota of Vokkaligas and Lingayats for whom two new reservation categories of 2C and 2D were created during the Belagavi Assembly session last year.

State Congress president D K Shivakumar also said that the communities of Vokkaligas and Lingayats will reject the newly offered reservation quota given to them by the BJP. “Vokkaligas and Lingayats are people who are called ‘annadatas’. They plough the land and provide food, they are landowners. We don’t want any of their reservation as minorities are our brothers and this is a country for all communities. Our country is very rich in our culture”, he said.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah had mentioned that the reservation provided on the basis of religion was not as per the provisions of the Constitution and that is why it was scrapped. “Reservations provided to the minority community were not as per Constitution. There is no provision in the Constitution to provide reservation on the basis of religion. The Congress government, due to its polarisation politics, provided reservation to the minorities on the basis of caste. The BJP scrapped that reservation and provided reservations to Vokkaliga and Lingayat communities”, he said. (ANI)