Hundreds of pro-Kannada activists participated in a rally in Bengaluru on Saturday, demanding reservation for Kannadigas in jobs in both the public and private sectors, The News Minute reported.

The Karnataka Rakshana Vedike also gave Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah a list of their demands. These include 100% job reservation for Kannadigas in state government departments and state-owned industries, as well as jobs in central government offices that run in Karnataka for candidates who learnt Kannada as a language in school.

The group also demanded that the recommendations made by the Sarojini Mahishi Committee on reservations in 1984 be implemented. The committee had recommended, among other things, that job aspirants in both government and private services, should know Kannada.

“So many Kannadigas are losing their jobs to people from outside the state because of the recommendations of the committee have not been implemented,” The News Minute quoted the group’s president, T Narayanagowda, as saying.

“Successive governments have slept over the issue of job reservation for locals in the private sector, which the Mahishi report had recommended,” Gowda told The Times of India. “We will not allow it anymore.”

Meanwhile, another Kannada group, the Kannada Development Authority will lead a delegation to New Delhi on Monday to ask the Centre to include local languages in all competitive exams, including banking exams and Joint Entrance Examinations, or cancel such exams until then, The Times of India reported.

“The movement is not just about language sentiment, but about reclaiming rights over equitable opportunities and livelihood,” SG Siddaramaiah, the group’s chairperson, told the newspaper.