Date:23/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/23/stories/2008042354370500.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Vokkaligas and OBCs resent low representation

Special Correspondent

OBC Cell chairman Ananth leaves Congress, joins the BSP

They are protesting against unfair Congress seat distribution in the first phase of elections
‘Congress paying lip service to Other Backward Classes’

Bangalore: The resentment by the Congress aspirants deprived of ticket to contest in the Assembly elections is snowballing into a major crisis. The latest to join the protest are the Vokkaligara Vedike and the Backward Classes Cell of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, who have protested against low representation to them in the first phase of elections in 11 districts.

Addressing separate press conferences, the cell chairman L.R. Ananth alleged that not a single person from the weavers and Vishwakarma castes has been accommodated by the Congress. He announced that he was joining the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). He said that the National General Secretary of the BSP, P.G.R. Sindhia had assured five seats to weavers in the elections, including Chickpet, where he would contest. Kadur Chandramma of the Janata Dal (S) also joined the BSP.

He said that though it was “painful” to sever relations with the Congress after 35 years of association with it, he had no option. The Congress, he alleged, was paying “lip service” to the Other Backward Classes, particularly the minorities from among them.

The vedike president T.V. Maruthi and C.R. Narayanappa, members, All India Congress Committee and G.C. Chandrasekhar, member of KPCC said that there was a gradual erosion of the number of seats to the Vokkaligas. In early 1970s, the caste used to get 65 seats and it had dwindled to 28 in the first phase of elections, while the number of Vokkaligas had gone up by 1.5 per cent and 95 constituencies were dominated by them, they said. The number of Lok Sabha seats for the community had shrunk to five from nine.

Jayanagar and Basavanagudi, they said, were Vokkaliga-Brahmin constituencies, but they had been given to others, including one to a Scheduled Caste (Bhovi), though the latter category had 36 reserved seats. They took objection to shifting the former minister Ramalinga Reddy, who belonged to the Vemana Reddy caste to B.T.M. Layout, depriving another seat to the Vokkaligas by giving it to a Muslim.

Mr. Narayanappa and Mr. Maruthi, alleged that Vokkaligas were gradually being driven out of their ancestral town. Such a trend was resulting in the erosion of the Congress base in the Old Mysore districts and it was time for the party to “wake up”, they said.

The Vokkaliga leaders demanded that at least 53 seats should be given to them, commensurate with their population in the State.