Breather for BJP after HC order on Lingayat sub-sect’s quota demand

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Bengaluru, August 21, 2022: The BJP government in Karnataka has been under pressure from a dominant sub-sect of its main support base in the state, the Lingayats, to provide education and job quotas under the Other Backward Classes (OBC) category, but it got some breathing space after the Karnataka High Court recently ordered a stay on evaluation of the community’s backwardness.

The Panchamasali Lingayats who form a key sub-sect of the Lingayat community have set the government multiple deadlines over the last year to decide on their demand. On July 1, 2021, the BJP government ordered the setting up of a committee under the leadership of retired High Court judge Justice Subhash B Adi to examine the Panchamasali community’s demand to be included under the 2A quota category for OBCs that would give them 15 per cent reservation instead of the 3B category, which entails only five per cent quota.

The community, most of whose members engage in agriculture, has cited poverty among a large section of its people as a reason for the OBC reservation demand. Although, over the years, Karnataka has seen several chief ministers from the Lingayat community such as BS Yediyurappa, Basavaraj Bommai and Jagadish Shettar, the grouse of the Panchamasali subsect is that it has not received significant political representation despite making up the largest chunk of the Veerashaiva Lingayat caste group.

The Karnataka State Backward Castes’ Federation moved the High Court questioning the government’s move to set up the committee and consider changing quotas for Panchamasali Lingayats. The federation has asked whether the state government could have issued an executive order to create the quota evaluation committee when reservation falls under the purview of the Karnataka State Commission for Backward Castes Act, 1995.

The high court said the federation’s petition raises the question of “whether the State in its Executive Power could constitute a Committee, to examine whether the Panchamasali Lingayat sub-sect (which is presently in Category 3B), under Government Order bearing dated 01.07.2021, can be included in category 2A and if so, under what circumstances”.

On August 12, the court ordered the petitioners to implead the Karnataka State Backward Classes Commission in the case and also imposed a stay on the activities of the Adi committee. “In the meanwhile, respondent No 2 — High-Level Committee for Examination of Reservation — is directed not to proceed further in respect of Reference 7(a) supra (with regard to Panchamasali Lingayath sub sect), till further orders,” Justice B Veerappa said in an interim order.

The Panchamasali group staged a protest march from Bagalkot in north Karnataka to Bengaluru last year to press its demand. The march was spread over two months. The protest was called off after then Karnataka Chief Minister Yediyurappa sought time to address the community’s demand in a constitutional and legal manner. The leaders of the Panchamasali community leading the agitation at the time, including BJP MLA Basanagouda Patil Yatnal, said the agitation was called off based on the assurances Yediyurappa made on the floor of the legislature about making an honest effort to resolve the issue.

“As per a Cabinet decision to resolve demands for reservations by various castes under legal and constitutional norms, a three-member committee is being constituted under the chairmanship of retired High Court judge Subhash Adi,”’ Yediyurappa said before he stepped down as CM on July 26, 2021.

The BJP government has said that a survey is being conducted by the backward classes commission to ascertain the socio-economic status and backwardness of the Panchamasalis.

Bommai, who replaced Yediyurappa as CM in July 2021, said at an all-party meeting this March that a report had been sought from the advocate general on the legal implications of the various demands for new reservations by various communities. “If reservations have to be provided, they have to be in accordance with Constitutional provisions and Supreme Court orders. The advocate general has been asked to submit a report in this regard,” Bommai said earlier this year.

The Panchamasalis claim to make up around 85 lakh of the state’s six crore population and claim to make up more than 70 per cent of the Lingayat population, which is estimated to be around 17 per cent of the population of Karnataka. The quota agitation was initially triggered in 2021 by BJP MLA Murugesh Nirani who was at the time not part of the state Cabinet. After his induction into the Cabinet, leaders such as Yatnal came to the forefront of the campaign. The issue obtained significance in the community because the sub-sect claimed it had been politically neglected.