On Tuesday, Siddaramaiah — a Congress Working Committee member and former Karnataka Chief Minister — directed attention to what he described as the prior BJP administration's handling of reservation enhancements for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, arguing that the policy had moved forward without the legal and constitutional groundwork needed to sustain it, a concern that gained renewed relevance after the Karnataka High Court struck down the expanded quota.
Siddaramaiah, in a written statement, argued that the High Court's ruling had undermined the prospects of communities that have historically faced restricted access to equal opportunities. Acknowledging the court's ruling as legitimate, he argued that the government had moved forward with expanding the reservation quota too quickly and without putting the necessary groundwork in place.
He noted that the ruling party raised SC reservations from 15 per cent to 17 per cent and ST reservations from three per cent to seven per cent in the period before the 2023 Assembly elections, a move he contended was made with awareness of the Supreme Court's Indra Sawhney judgment capping total reservations at 50 per cent, and he questioned why those quota adjustments were carried out without putting adequate constitutional safeguards in place.
Siddaramaiah questioned whether the BJP had placed electoral considerations above its commitment to social justice. The groundwork for expanding the reservation quota, he argued, was laid by the Justice Nagamohan Das Committee — a body established when Congress held power in government.
The statement attributed the expansion of reservation rights not to any party's political goodwill, but to prolonged collective action by communities that had long been shut out of equal opportunity. Siddaramaiah directed his objections at the central government — a BJP-led administration — questioning its choice to keep the expanded reservation outside the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution, a stance the government attributed to ongoing court proceedings on the matter.
A question was put forward about what constitutional mechanism the Centre intended to put in place to safeguard the expanded reservation. Siddaramaiah made clear that no compromise would be accepted on reservation access or social inclusion for minorities, backward classes, and Dalits — the communities grouped under the AHINDA label in Karnataka's political vocabulary — framing their equitable participation in public life as a matter beyond negotiation.
Pressing the point that political democracy falls short without corresponding gains in social and economic equality, he described reservation as a right rather than an act of charity. The provision, he argued, functions as a constitutional mechanism aimed at redressing historical wrongs and securing fair representation for groups that have long faced marginalisation.
Siddaramaiah put forward a call for the Union government to move beyond the existing 50 per cent cap on reservations, arguing that quotas ought to reflect actual population shares and that any expanded allocation should be shielded from legal challenge through placement in the Ninth Schedule. A further demand from him urged the Karnataka government to pursue whatever legal avenues were available to hold the expanded reservation quotas at their current levels, thereby protecting students and job-seekers whose prospects might be shaped by the ruling handed down by the court.
Siddaramaiah argued that the pursuit of social justice could not be confined to pledges made during election seasons, and that it instead demanded sustained political will, constitutional accountability, and enduring structural reforms — with the goal of securing, for the next generation, not merely a promise of representation but meaningful access to equal opportunities and a life of dignity.
Vijayendra, who holds the post of Karnataka BJP state president and serves the assembly as an elected member, separately on Tuesday directed his remarks at the state government over its handling of the expanded reservation provisions for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, after the Karnataka High Court struck down the quota increase. In a written statement, Vijayendra expressed disappointment over what he described as the government's lack of committed advocacy for Scheduled Communities, attributing a setback to their reservation entitlements under social justice provisions to that perceived shortfall.
The claim put forward was that Congress had never drawn up any lasting plan directed at the welfare of Scheduled Communities. The move to expand reservation in line with population figures, he noted, had already been put in place under the preceding BJP administration when Basavaraj Bommai was at its helm.
Vijayendra noted that reservation allocations for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes had each been lifted — by two and four percentage points respectively — under the BJP administration, yet the Congress-led state government now in office had not managed to defend those expanded quotas before the courts. He characterised the result as regrettable, arguing that the Congress-led administration had fallen short on two fronts — neither extending new entitlements nor protecting the reservation provisions already in place.
Vijayendra called on the state government to move without delay in pursuing a stay on the High Court ruling and putting protections in place for the enhanced reservation, adding that a failure to address the matter would leave his group with little choice but to mount an organised effort on behalf of the Scheduled Communities.
