Internal quota: Congress leaders prefer to wait for Centre's empirical data

Bengaluru: A section of Scheduled Caste (SC) leaders, who have apprehensions over internal reservation, argued on Monday that the issue should be lobbed at the union government. 

This was the argument made by Scheduled Caste (Right) leaders during a meeting at Home Minister G Parameshwara’s residence on Monday.

The meeting was also attended by Scheduled Caste (Left) leaders who are in favour of internal reservation. 

The SC (Right), Banjara and Bhovi caste group leaders also said the state government must resolve confusion over issuance of caste certificates to SCs such as Adi Karnataka and Adi Dravida.

Speaking to DH, Congress lawmaker P M Narendraswamy, who attended the meeting, said that all leaders have agreed unequivocally that the party should take lead steps to implement the internal reservation among the SCs. 

“As the Supreme Court in its order has mandated that to implement the internal reservation, it must be done by following empirical data. Empirical data can only be availed if the census is completed. So, this issue must be deliberated in the Cabinet and ask the central government to provide the empirical data to implement the internal reservation in the state,” Narendraswamy said and added that the Congress, in its manifesto as well as the Chitradurga convention, has declared commitment towards internal reservation.

Multiple sources who attended the meeting told DH that the central government has already made up its mind that they will not be implementing the SC order on demarking creamy layer among the SCs. So, the state can now simply ask the central government to provide empirical data to implement the internal reservation. 

“Apart from this, the meeting also discussed existing problems in issuance of caste certificates among SCs that needs to be fixed urgently. For instance, Adi Karnataka in some parts of the state is considered as SC Right and in some other parts it’s SC Left. Likewise, Adi Dravida is considered as SC-Left in some parts and SC-Right in other parts. There are around more than 101 sub-castes in SC list and almost all castes face similar problems like Adi Karnataka and Adi Dravida issue,” the source explained.

The meeting in Parameshwara’s residence lasted about two hours.

Before that, he held a meeting with Siddaramaiah for more than an hour.