Senior Congress leader V.S. Ugrappa on Monday (May 11) urged the State government to initiate steps to get the stay on 56% reservation vacated in Karnataka High Court even as he urged the Centre to include the hiked reservation in the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution.

“The legal team has to convince the High Court. Somewhere, the team has slipped. The Advocate General has also not attended some of the hearings. He has also submitted to the court that the 50% reservation will be implemented,” Mr. Ugrappa told presspersons here after attending a meeting organised by the Valmiki community’s Samana Manaskara Vedike.

With the government scheduled to notify 56,432 posts across departments for recruitment, Mr. Ugrappa estimated that instead of 3,750 posts under 7% reservation, the community will get about 1,600 posts under 3% reservation.

He said that The Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions and of Appointments or Posts in the Services under the State) Act, 2022 — providing for 17% and 7% reservation to SCs and STs respectively — had received the Governor’s assent, and that the reservation is in proportion to the population.

The former MP said that the Centre should take steps to include the legislation under the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution to provide legal protection. He pointed out that the State had written several letters to the Centre on the matter. “When the Centre has included cases of several States, why is it delaying Karnataka’s case? This was a legislation brought by the BJP government in Karnataka,” he noted.