PPublic recruitment in Karnataka — suspended for over a year due to reservation issues — is set to begin with a new quota matrix. Amid pressure from job seekers, the Karnataka government has announced the start of the recruitment process to fill 56,432 posts. It will be one of the biggest recruitment drives by the state in recent years.
The new matrix was not without resentment, however; it changed the total amount of reservations and also changed the internal reservation quota for Scheduled Castes (SCs).
Faced with a flurry of cases in the Karnataka High Court on the reservation issue, the state government has tried to overcome the legal challenge through executive orders. Key decisions include scrapping the amount of reservations that were increased to 17% for SCs and 7% for STs through the Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (reservation of seats in educational institutions and appointments or posts in services under the state law) 2022. The increased quota of 50% for reservations was overruled by the Supreme Court. against it in the High Court. The government has now reversed the quota to 15% from 17% and 3% from 7% to SCs and STs, bringing the total quota back to the earlier 50%. OBCs have 32% reservation quota in the state.
In particular, the reduction in ST reservation has disappointed the youth of the community seeking public employment as their opportunities will now diminish. In Karnataka, the ST list has 51 tribes, of which the Nayaks remain the dominant community. Their inclusion in the list during the 1990s contributed significantly to the increase in ST population in the state. The 2022 legislation set a 7% reservation proportional to their population, but it is now back to 3%.
Eery silence
Strangely, community leaders in both the ruling Congress and the opposition BJP have not said much about the issue in public. A proposed protest rally from Chitradurga to Bengaluru by the BJP to condemn the cuts did not take off, apparently due to pressure from their high command. Although the BJP government enacted expanded reservations in 2022, legal experts believe it must be included in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution to get legal protection, a task considered difficult for the National Democratic Alliance-dominated Centre. States like Tamil Nadu have been able to cross the limit by including their reservation matrix in the Ninth Plan.
In the Congress, several Nayaka leaders feel that the party is not doing enough to protect ST interests and is also not trying to score political points against the BJP by putting pressure on the Centre. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah – in his list of 18 demands to PM Modi – sought the inclusion of expanded reservation in the Ninth Plan. But many in the party feel that is not enough.
On the issue of sub-classification among the 101 SCs, the state has come up with a new matrix — the fifth such model proposed in one-and-a-half decades, which includes three proposed in just the last year. The reduction of the total SC reservation to 15% did not see much resentment. Dalit Madiga leaders, who managed to stall the recruitment process till sub-classification was announced, did not speak much against reducing the total number of reservations.
The new matrix was achieved under the 15% ceiling, even though the Karnataka Scheduled Castes (Sub-Classification) Act, 2025 received the Governor’s assent (yet to be announced) for internal reservation under the 17% quota.
However, 49 nomadic tribes and 10 microscopic communities that fall under the SC category have threatened to move the court again against the new sub-classification and seek a separate category. Although the HN Nagmohan Das Commission had recommended a separate category for these 59 castes last year, the state government has included them in Category 3 along with relatively better-off communities such as Banjara, Korama, Koracha and Bhovi. Karnataka’s tangled reservation matrix issue shows no sign of resolution any time soon.
Published – 13 May 2026 02:13 IST
