Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.
Credit: DH File Photo
Bengaluru: The Internal Reservation Struggle Committee for Social Justice on Friday urged Chief Minister Siddaramaiah to replace all top functionaries of the Social Welfare Department, including minister H C Mahadevappa, to protect the interests of all 101 Scheduled Castes.
“Social Welfare Department Minister Dr H C Mahadevappa, Principal Secretary Major Manivannan, Commissioner Rakesh Kumar, Joint Secretary Kalavathi and Scheduled Caste Special Plan/ Tribal Special Plan (SCSP/TSP) advisor Venkataiah are all related to the same community.
"Prima facie, it looks like the social welfare department is under the complete control of one community, which is undesirable to the interests of 101 SC communities....Thus, the minister should be given a different portfolio and officials should be transferred to other departments,” a letter addressed to the CM said.
A delegation of leaders from the committee met Chief Secretary Shalini Rajneesh. They expressed dissatisfaction at the government’s decision to allow people registered as Adi Karnataka, Adi Dravida and Adi Andhra (AK, AD and AA) to register either under category A (Madiga and related castes) or category B (Holeya and related castes).
They noted that this would allow members of category B to obtain jobs instead of category A aspirants due to “greater merit.”
“The revenue department should issue an order that those registered as AK, AD and AA should obtain a caste certificate of their original caste (moola jati), and the Centre should be asked to remove AK, AD and AA from the list of SCs.
Letter to Rahul
The Confederation of Untouchable Nomadic Communities of Karnataka shot off a letter to top Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, stating that 1,000 persons from nomadic SC communities would meet him in Delhi on October 2 (Gandhi Jayanti).
The letter urged Rahul to ensure that justice is provided to the nomadic communities, which are fighting for reservation. These communities are seeking a separate 1 per cent reservation.