Afternoon Pulse: Karnataka leaves quota appeal to Cabinet as protest crackdown stings Congress

Since this morning, the Shivakumar government has broken its silence on the High Court ruling that struck down Karnataka's 56 per cent reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. It has not made a decision. Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara told reporters in Bengaluru that the Cabinet would decide whether to appeal in the Supreme Court. Meanwhile the government found itself answering a different charge: that its own police roughed up people protesting against the voter-roll revision the Congress itself opposes.

On the quota, Parameshwara said the state would consult the Advocate General and the Law Department before the Cabinet takes a call, IANS and ANI reported. He said the government still had to work out whether the order applies to past decisions or only future ones, and that several recruitments made after the Congress came to power had followed the higher quotas. He called the ruling a serious development for jobs and education. He also offered a personal view that a six-point increase could have been treated as a special case, pointing to Tamil Nadu's 69 per cent. No date for the Cabinet meeting has been officially announced in any report we could verify.

Parameshwara also pushed back at the BJP. He rejected the suggestion that the government could steer the judiciary, saying no one can hold a judge's hand. He asked why the Bommai government passed the law in October 2022 knowing it would cross the 50 per cent line without Ninth Schedule protection, and urged the Centre to review the ceiling and reconsider Karnataka's request to place the quotas in that schedule, Business Standard and NewsKarnataka reported. The Centre had deferred that request while the case was pending, the reports said.

Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah went further in a statement carried by ANI and Asianet Newsable. He called the verdict a serious setback for marginalised communities and asked whether the BJP had put electoral advantage ahead of lasting social justice when it raised the quotas before the 2023 election. He credited the Justice Nagamohan Das committee, set up under the Congress-JD(S) coalition in 2018, with laying the groundwork, and said the Union government must now explain what constitutional fix it proposes.

What the ruling means for students and job seekers remains unclear. NewsKarnataka reported that admissions and appointments already made have not been automatically cancelled and that the effect will depend on the court's operative directions. The government says it will try to protect ongoing recruitment and admissions. Until the Cabinet meets and the full order is studied, candidates are being told to watch for official notices.

Bommai's challenge from last night, that the BJP would go to the Supreme Court itself if the state did not, drew no direct reply from Chief Minister D K Shivakumar in any report we found by early afternoon.

The second story is closer to home for the ruling party. On Monday afternoon, police detained around 50 to 60 protesters from the My Vote My Right coalition near the Chief Electoral Officer's office in Bengaluru, The South First reported. Protesters alleged excessive force, including hair-pulling and kicking, and journalists said they were pushed and a camera was snatched, according to The South First and The News Minute. Police said the group had gathered without permission, refused to move to Freedom Park, and were held in preventive custody and later released.

On Tuesday, Home Minister Priyank Kharge said the police handling of the protest would be reviewed and that officers had been told not to disrupt peaceful demonstrations, The Bengaluru Live and The Week reported. He also asked protesters to keep the police informed. The Week noted the awkward timing: the detentions came as Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi were leading an anti-SIR protest in Delhi.

The other morning loops did not move. ANI reported no fix yet to the 14 defects the Supreme Court registry flagged in the INDIA bloc's SIR petition, and no listing date. We found no new government step on Kumaraswamy's sting allegations, and the BJP has still not announced dates for its threatened siege of police stations over Form-7 FIRs.