Yediyurappa under pressure to appoint one more deputy

The Valmiki (ST) community mounted pressure on Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Monday to appoint one of their legislators as his deputy.

“About 60-70% of the Valmiki community supported the BJP in the Assembly and Lok Sabha polls. So, we’ve asked the chief minister to appoint a Valmiki deputy CM and three berths in the Cabinet for the community,” Rajanahalli Valmiki Gurupeetha Sri Jagadguru Valmiki Prasannananda Swami told reporters after holding talks with Yediyurappa.

This could put Yediyurappa in a spot because Health Minister B Sreeramulu, who is arguably the BJP’s tallest Valmiki leader, was projected as the deputy chief ministerial face ahead of the Assembly polls only to be snubbed after the party came to power.

It is also said that the BJP has promised to make former Congress’ Gokak legislator Ramesh Jarkholi, also a Valmiki, the deputy CM, provided he gets relief from the Supreme Court in his petition challenging his disqualification.

Yediyurappa already has three deputies - Govind Karjol (Dalit), C N Ashwath Narayan (Vokkaliga) and Laxman Savadi (Lingayat).

The community has also demanded increasing the ST reservation from 3% to 7.50%.

According to a statement by the chief minister’s office (CMO), Yediyurappa assured the delegation of constituting another committee to examine hiking the ST reservation.

Hiking the ST reservation to 7.50% will breach the 50% quota ceiling set by the Supreme Court, in the landmark 1993 Indra Sawhney judgement. At present, Karnataka provides 15% reservation for SC, 3% for ST and 32% for the other backward classes (OBC) - totalling to 50%.

Tamil Nadu, with 69% reservation, is the only state where quotas exceed the SC ceiling. This was made possible by getting its reservation law included in Schedule 9 of the Constitution. The Valmikis have demanded a hike in reservation saying their population is no longer 3% of the state’s total.