The Congress party on Monday, March 24 accused the BJP of spreading misinformation over the Karnataka government's decision to grant 4% reservation for Muslims in public contracts. Congress leaders emphasised that the categorisation of backward classes in Karnataka was established in 1994, and that the reservation was based on socio-economic backwardness, not religion.
The controversy erupted after BJP members claimed that Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar suggested amending the Constitution to accommodate 4% percent reservation for Muslims. Shivakumar, however, denied the allegation, stating that he never proposed any constitutional amendment for religion-based reservations.
In response to BJP’s accusations, Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh released a detailed chronology of past legislation to counter what he described as “lies being spread by the BJP.” He argued that the latest amendment to the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement (KTPP) Act should not be viewed in isolation but rather as a continuation of previous policies aimed at addressing the extreme levels of backwardness among certain communities.
According to Ramesh, the Karnataka government had been implementing reservations in civil works contracts for nearly a decade. In 2015, a bill was proposed in the Karnataka Assembly to provide a 24 percent reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs) in civil works contracts valued up to Rs 50 lakh. This bill was implemented in 2017 and later upheld by the Karnataka High Court on December 20, 2019. The financial cap for SC/ST reservation was subsequently raised to Rs 1 crore in July 2023.
In June 2024, the scope of reservations was expanded to include Other Backward Class (OBC) contractors. Under this amendment, four percent reservation was granted to OBC contractors from Category I (Most Backward), while 15 percent was allocated to Category IIA (Relatively Most Backward, including Buddhists). In March 2025, the cap for reservation in civil works contracts was raised to Rs 2 crore, with the following allocations:
24 percent for SC/STs
4 percent for OBC contractors from Category I
15 percent for OBC contractors from Category IIA
4 percent for OBC contractors from Category IIB
“The categorisation of backward classes in Karnataka was done in September, 1994 under which Muslim communities have been listed under Category IIB after carrying out educational and socio-economic backwardness survey. Reservation was not on basis of religion but was only on basis of backwardness. This has continued in Congress, BJP and JD(S) governments in the state,” Ramesh stated.