Congress could announce candidates for Karnataka Assembly elections by November-end, says Siddaramaiah

Elections to the legislative Assembly in Karnataka are scheduled for May 2023

Congress party’s list of candidates for the Assembly elections in Karnataka could be announced by the end of November 2022, said former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah while responding to questions from reporters in Mysuru on October 31. Legislative Assembly elections in Karnataka are scheduled for May 2023.

Mr Siddaramaiah criticised the BJP government in Karnataka for it’s alleged corruption, and failure to convene a special session of the State legislature to enact legislation to increase the quota for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

His contention is that promulgation of an ordinance to increase reservation will not provide enough legal protection for the decision. He wants the increase in quota to be included in the 9th schedule of the Constitution for which Parliament’s assent is required.

He said legal protection is necessary as the Supreme Court, in Indira Sawhney case of 1992, has limited reservation to 50%. The decision to increase reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes by 6%, in addition to the 10% reservation to economically backward persons among the forward castes, will take the total reservation to 66%.

Hence, the decision to increase quota for SCs and STs in Karnataka should be included in the 9th schedule of the Constitution so that the same can be ‘protected’, he explained.

Mr. Siddaramaiah said the credit for increasing the quantum of reservation for SCs and STs in Karnataka should go to the Congress party as the Justice Nagmohan Das Commission was constituted when Congress MLA Priyank Kharge was the Social Welfare Minister in the Congress-JD (S) coalition government.

Also, the report by the Commission was submitted on July 2, 2020, but the BJP government waited for more than two years instead of taking a decision on increasing the quota. “If they had political will, they would have increased the quota once the report was submitted,” he said claiming that the BJP government was forced to take a decision after it came under pressure from the seer of Valmiki Mutt and Congress party.