Talk of skewed caste, regional representation crops up again

The compulsions faced by the BJP in inducting new ministers has revived allegations of regional and caste disparity in the Cabinet.

While Yediyurappa was primarily criticised by MLAs close to him for forming a ‘Bengaluru and Belagavi Cabinet’ and over lack of representation for other districts, others raised concerns on loading the Cabinet with members from only a few communities.

Regional disparity

The inclusion of Arvind Limbavali and Umesh Katti increased the number of ministers from Bengaluru Urban district and Belagavi district to eight and five respectively. As a result, 13 of the 34 ministers hail from these districts.

This prompted CM’s political secretary M P Renukacharya and MLA S A Ramdas, to attack Yediyurappa accusing him of disparity to several regions of the state. While Renukacharya accused the government of meting injustice to central Karnataka region, Ramdas said that one of the legislators from Mysuru district should have been inducted.

Apart from the 13, three ministers hail from Haveri district while two each are from Shivamogga and Bagalkot districts. While the coastal districts - with a significant BJP voter base - now has one minister each, majority of the districts in Kalyana Karnataka region such as Kalaburagi, Yadgir and Raichur do not find Cabinet
representation.

Caste equation

Though members of the minority community continue to be sidelined by the government, an analysis of Cabinet ministers show that prominent communities of the state form a lion’s share of ministers.

While one-third of the ministers are from Lingayat community - 11 out of 33 ministers, Vokkaligas are second in terms of ministers with seven. The inclusion of M T B Nagaraj and R Shankar - both hailing from Kuruba community has increased the community’s representation to four as K S Eshwarappa and Byrati Basavaraju are already part of the Cabinet.

The number of ministers from SC and ST communities is five and two, respectively. Two Brahmins and three OBCs fill up the remaining positions.