BBMP’s ward reservation maze

PIPEDREAM OF PERFECT RESERVATION

Vidhan Soudha

It has been 25 months since the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council’s term expired. After the delay from the delimitation exercise, now reservation exercise has been delaying the poll process further.

While the exercise is being conducted based on the 2011 census, it ignores the decadal growth and difference in the demography of Bengaluru. The nonavailability of data, especially on backward classes, and lack of transparency have made the reservation exercise look politically motivated.

“The criteria is to go by population. We have Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) data from the 2011 census. There is no data available for backward classes. So the easy way to do this is to just fill the 50% cap minus SC/ST reservation with Other Backward Castes (OBCs). I have suggested the same to the government,” says Congress MLC P R Ramesh.

To decide what percentages of seats must be given to OBCs, the government constituted Justice K Bhaktavatsala Commission of Inquiry for OBC Reservation in Local Body Elections in Karnataka in May 2022. The Commission report submitted in July 2022 upheld the reservation of 1/3rd of the total seats in favour of OBCs in local body elections including the BBMP polls.

In August 2022, the state government finalised the ward-wise reservation list for the BBMP. Out of 243 wards, 81 were reserved for backward classes and 120 wards were reserved for women. 28 wards were reserved for SCs, while four wards were meant for STs.

Officials say that the reservation committee had only the population figures of SC and ST in hand. The reservation was done in descending order of population.

“For women, we did it by a process called randomisation. In the absence of any other rationale, we had to do this. Women’s is a category, not a reservation. It’s like a lottery. It will be different when it is done again,” says the source. Reservation of OBCs was also by randomisation, and whatever was left went to the general category.

Lopsided women’s reservation

However, the randomisation did not really look random. Take for example the Bommanahalli assembly constituency where there are 14 wards out of which 9 are meant for women. “The demand is that reservation for women should be given in all assembly constituencies. Giving nine seats for women out of 14 makes it lopsided. The government has argued that they have given an overall 50% reservation in BBMP limits, whereas it should be balanced even inside the assembly,” says Kavitha Reddy, Congress general secretary.

Many petitioners in the court who objected to the reservation pattern argued the same. They complained that in several assembly constituencies held by the opposition parties, maximum wards were reserved for women. Likewise, in some assembly constituencies held by the ruling party, women had less reservation.

For example, in the seven wards of Malleshwaram, six were general and only one was reserved for women. In Jayanagar and Shivajinagar, five out of six seats each were for women. The data provided to the court also showed that in many wards, the number of female voters was less than male voters, proving that there was no empirical evidence for the reservation.

Arbitrary reservation for SC/ST

Kavitha says that SC/ST reservations also have been arbitrary. Bommanahalli does not have any ward reserved for SC/ST. “Does it mean the constituency does not have the population at all?” she asks.

Mohan Krishna, a resident of the Horamavu ward belonging to the scheduled caste (SC) community, wanted to contest the BBMP polls. The ward had a total population of 95,368 and the SC population was notified to be 12,171 as per the 2011 census. When the ward boundaries changed due to delimitation, there was no exercise to verify which among the two portions the SC population was scattered to.

“The reservation was done without taking into account the strength of the population in various wards and without taking into consideration the higher population of SCs and STs,” said his petition.

The state argued that the ward-wise population as per the 2011 census was taken in order to determine the SC/ST reservation, and the enumeration block in each of the wards was taken into account

Is the 2011 data good enough base to decide on the issue? “I don’t see any other way. We did not have the 2021 census due to Covid and other issues. Getting an actual scientific representation may not be possible,” says Mathew Idiculla, an urban governance expert and a visiting faculty at Azim Premji University. He feels some representation is better than none.

Navigating OBC reservation

OBC reservations are not a constitutional mandate, but a state government statute. The Commission estimated the percentage of total minorities and OBCs in Karnataka to be about 44.4%. Since the upper limit for OBCs was 33%, the Commission upheld it. Since there is no BBMP-limit-specific data on OBCs, the state’s percentage was adopted to BBMP limits as well. However, in BBMP limits, the population of the city has to be considered, not the state’s, as the population percentage will vary, says P R Ramesh, Congress MLC.

Many petitioners contended that the reservations of 81 wards to the backward classes were contrary to the Supreme Court (SC) judgment in the case of K Krishnamurthy vs Union of India (2010) which mandated the “triple test” for OBC reservation. The court also struck down the reservation based on this.

What is the triple test?

‘Triple test’ is the three criteria to be fulfilled by the state as mandated by the Supreme Court, before reserving seats in the local bodies for OBCs, in the K Krishnamurthy case.

First, the state must set up a dedicated Commission to conduct a relevant and rigorous empirical inquiry into the nature and implications of the political backwardness of the communities in local bodies. Justice Bhaktavatsala Commission was set up for this purpose.

The second step was to “specify the proportion of reservation in the local body in light of recommendations of the Commission,” to avoid conflicts. The state government came up with the reservation list to fulfil this.

Thirdly, the reservation for SC/ST/OBCs shall not exceed the aggregate of 50% of the total seats. The state passed an ordinance in June to ensure this. The state argued in the court that the “triple test” condition was satisfied.

Sources say that when it comes to political representation, only 50 castes out of 749 castes in Category A of OBC were represented politically, while among Category B, 28 out of 53 castes were represented. Thus, a large number of castes and communities who come under Category A and B are still politically unrepresented.

The Commission argued that the list of SC/STs notified for the purpose of education and employment is used even for political reservation, with no separate list for this purpose. The same was followed for OBCs too, and the Commission said that it was based on empirical data.

However, there is one problem. The Supreme Court did not define what was empirical data of OBC. There is no clarity on whether it is the population of OBCs, or the quantification of the political representation of each of the castes. There is no clarity on the term ‘political representation’ too. This makes it open to interpretation, say sources.

No scientific method

A bigger problem is this: There is no scientific way to decide how much representation must be given to which caste, among the 803 OBCs. The state has a caste census from 2015 but it is not public. The Union government conducted a Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) in 2011 which had OBC data. However, the Union government, in an affidavit to Supreme Court in September 2021, called it flawed and “unusable”.

The Union government also said that the 2021 census will not have OBC remuneration, as the process was “too complicated”. The enumeration for the 2021 census is yet to begin.

“Under the 74th amendment of the Constitution, SC/ST reservation is mandatory and absolutely required. But OBC reservation is optional. SC has told states to come up with a scientific way to decide on this. It is hard to say how the OBC reservation is being done,” says Idiculla.

Since the upper cap for OBC reservations is 33%, population data may not look important. However, while deciding the representation of each community inside OBC, this data is needed, and is not available, or not public.

After the government told the court that it adopted randomisation method for the allotment of reservations for women and backward classes, the High Court quashed the list.
The State Election Commission has told the court that it can hold the poll if the court says so. However, the court has asked the government to complete the process of reservation and then go to the polls.

With December 30 deadline looming on the government to complete the process and with problems remaining, the government's actions have raised curiosity.