Karnataka Assembly elections 2023: Which way with the SC/ST vote swing

It is important that for a party in Karnataka to form the government, the votes of the SC/ST community must swing its way. No party is leaving anything to chance on this front

Bengaluru, Jan 10: Both the BJP and Congress in Karnataka are leaving no stone unturned to woo the Backward Classes.

Over a lakh people are attended a massive convention of the Schedule Castes and Tribes held by the Congress in Chitradurga. This came in the backdrop of BJP chief, J P Nadda embarking on a two-day tour of Tumakuru, Chitradurga and Davanagere during which he reached out to mutts and held caste conventions on Backward Classes. The Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribes conventionally vote for the Congress in Karnataka. In a bid to woo these set of voters, the BJP which rules the state increased the quota for the SC/STs. The BJP had also last week held a massive rally of the Schedule Tribes in Ballari, while a similar rally was held in Kalaburgi in December. Another rally is on the cards and this would be held in Mysuru.

The SC/STs comprise 16 per cent and 6.9 per cent of the population in Karnataka. In the previous elections, they had largely supported the Congress.

While the BJP largely relies on the votes of the Lingayat community, the largest in the state, the Congress gets support from the Vokkaligas, minorities and SC/STs.

While the BJP is confident of the Lingayat vote, it would need to ensure a good chunk of votes from the SC/STs in order to be the majority party. While both in 2008 and 2018, it was the largest party, it fell slightly short of the majority mark as a result of which it had to seek out support.

The BJP government in its SC/ST outreach programme hiked the reservation quota for the SCs to 17 per cent, up from 15 percent. For the STs the quota was hiked from 3 to 7 per cent. The total percentage of the reservation is now 56 per cent which is above the 50 per cent cap imposed by the Supreme Court of India. It was in October last year that Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai took the decision of passing an Ordinance to hike the reservation for the SC/ST community. In the Winter Session of the Assembly the bill had been passed unanimously.

The Congress has now demanded that the Centre should introduce a Bill under the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution- a list of the central and state laws which cannot be challenged in the courts.

The votes of the SC/ST community become important for the BJP as it believes that the resignation of B S Yediyurappa as the Chief Minister and the Panchamasali Lingayat agitation could fracture the Lingayat votes.

The Congress on the other hand is also making a major push as it aware of the lengths that the BJP is going to bag these votes. The BJP government's decision to make contract pourakarmikas permanent could help the party. The Congress is also aware that it ended up losing SC/ST votes in the previous elections as the Janata Dal (S) had tied up with the BSP. It was due to this tie up that stalwart SC Congress leader, H V Mahadevappa had lost to Alvin Kumar of the JD(S) in T Narasipura by a whopping 45,000 votes.