The quota debate: Why Karnataka minister Santosh Lad says OBC reservation not charity

In Karnataka, backward classes reservation has been a key theme that’s now poised at a crucial juncture. In 2015, the state was the first in the country to carry out a ‘caste census’ with the objective of formulating a fresh OBC reservation policy, but that process proved fruitless given the decade-long wait before a survey report eventually became available.

Since its data was deemed outdated, a fresh socio-economic and educational survey was ordered in 2025 by the then Siddaramaiah-led Congress government. This May, the new report was completed and handed over to the government days before Siddaramaiah was succeeded by D.K. Shivakumar as Karnataka chief minister.

Implementing the caste census report was a 2023 Congress election manifesto promise and a key agenda of party leader Rahul Gandhi. But it is also a political minefield given the opposition to the caste census from some of Karnataka’s dominant caste groups.

“As far as the [caste] census is concerned, we are in the last leg now. In due course, maybe in a few months, this census will definitely be coming out,” Karnataka minister for labour and employment Santosh S. Lad said at the India Today Conclave South in Kochi on September 29. He was taking part in the session ‘Counted by caste: Should population size dictate social justice architecture?’

“Once data is available, based on that, there should be a debate nationwide. Sixty per cent of OBCs in this country don’t have a voice in [legislative] assemblies and Parliament,” he said.The BJP’s Arvind Bellad, who is deputy leader of the Opposition in the Karnataka legislative assembly, strongly backed OBC reservation. “We need reservation for OBCs—there’s no doubt about it. What we have achieved educationally, economically and in entrepreneurship are things we need to study and revisit again and again,” said Bellad.

Accusing the Congress of inaction on OBC reservation from the days of the Mandal Commission, Bellad asked: “Talking is one thing. Our current prime minister is an OBC. Can the Congress say that its next prime ministerial candidate will not be Rahul Gandhi and will be an OBC?”

Lad’s counter-point was that “there are more than 3,743 small communities of OBCs” in the country who needed representation. “That’s why reservation is a right. It is representation; it’s not charity,” he said.