K'taka Cong chief promises to cancel scrapping of 4% quota for Muslims

Karnataka Congress chief DK Shivakumar on Friday said that if the grand old party came to power in the assembly elections, it would cancel the scrapping of 4 percent Muslim quota by the ruling government.

In March, the Karnataka government decided to scrap the four per cent quota for minorities and add it to the existing quota of two dominant communities of the poll-bound state.

The 4 per cent reservation given to Muslims under 2B classification of the OBC category will now be divided into two equal parts and added to the existing quota of Vokkaligas and Lingayats for whom two new reservation categories of 2C and 2D were created during the Belagavi Assembly Session last year.

While talking to ANI, Shivakumar said, "Without any complications, we raised our two lists. BJP could not raise its list yet...More lists will come...As soon as our government comes, we will cancel the reservation issue and will protect the minority interest."

On Thursday, Congress released the second list of 41 candidates for the upcoming Karnataka Assembly Election 2023 and also marked a seat for the regional outfit Sarvodaya Karnataka Party. The announcement was made following the meeting of the Congress Central Election Committee.

On Tuesday, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said that the Bharatiya Janata Party's Parliamentary Board would finalise and release the list of candidates for the upcoming Assembly elections in the state on April 8.

The Chief Minister added that the selection of the candidates has been done based on winnability.

The Congress had on March 25 announced its first list of 124 candidates, which included names of former CM Siddaramaiah and State Party chief DK Shivakumar.

The Assembly election in Karnataka is scheduled to be held on May 10 and the counting of votes will take place on May 13.