Social media users had a field day with witty posts on IPL franchise Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) after a row erupted over Karnataka government’s Bill mandating job reservation for Kannadigas in private sector.

On Monday, the state Cabinet cleared the ‘Karnataka State Employment of Local Candidates in the Industries, Factories and Other Establishments Bill, 2024’, which makes it compulsory for private firms to reserve jobs for Kannadigas.

Seeing the lighter side of it, several X (formerly Twitter) users wondered if the rule would be applicable to RCB team too.

“Is this 70% reservation policy applicable for the RCB team as well? Karnataka #Kannadigas Bangalore,” an X user named Neha Singhal posted.

To this, there were several replies including one by a user named Julian Thomas, who said, “I think it’s the only way RCB can win IPL.”

User Trendulkar too asked, “Will RCB have 50-75% Kannadigas too?”

X user Abhinav Verma replied, “By their logic, Virat (Kohli) will be an overseas player.”

“Anushka (Sharma) is from Bangalore, he will fall under son in law quota,” posted Chinmaya Sahu.

Since the start of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2008, RCB have not won the trophy. Their wait has extended to 17 years.

Most of the RCB players who play in the IPL are not from Karnataka. Many local fans have urged the RCB team management to pick local talent. However, earlier, RCB had Karnataka and Bengaluru stalwarts like Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble, who were captains.

The quota for Kannadigas Bill has however been withheld now.

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Thursday (July 18) said his government has decided to withhold the Bill mandating job reservation for Kannadigas in private sector due to “certain confusion”.

He said the Bill will be taken up for discussion in the next Cabinet meeting to clear the doubts.

“On Monday, complete discussion (on the topic) could not take place in the cabinet meeting. By then reports had appeared in the media,” he told the Karnataka Assembly. “There was some confusion. We will clear those confusions in the next cabinet meeting. Let’s have a detailed discussion.”