Students, faculty stage protests against KPSC decision

Thousands of Bangalore University students along with faculty members on Tuesday stormed the BU campus protesting against the Karnataka Public Service Commission’s (KPSC) decision to stop recruiting SC/ST/OBC candidates under the general merit quota.

Though Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy indicated that he is going back on the decision, students took out protests against a high court order passed in 2012 by Justice N Kumar.

“This will reduce the number of backward classes in government services. This is an anti-Dalit decision. Nobody has the right to stop people from any category from qualifying under general merit. There is no discrimination by caste or creed to merit, so why is the government categorising meritorious students based on their caste?” asked BU professor Mylarappa addressing the gathering.

The protesters also warned the government to face consequences if it ever takes any decision against the welfare of the backward classes. They also submitted a memorandum in this regard to the vice-chancellor Venugopal K R requesting him to forward it to the chief minister, and the governor.
“I will be handing this memorandum to the governor personally. The protest got a huge response, this shows the strength of the students, and their opposition towards the decision,” Venugopal said.

All the departments of the BU came to a halt for half a day following the protest called by the students and the BU faculty. Police had tightened security near the administrative block anticipating the number of people turning out for the protest.

Traffic inside the BU campus was also affected.