PANAJI
Alleging that the on-going agitation demanding political reservation for Schedule Tribe (ST) Community is politically motivated, the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday said that the BJP-led State government is committed to ensure that the community gets political reservation in 2027, when the next Goa Assembly elections are scheduled.
Sawant said that a delegation led by him, comprising of Social Welfare Minister, Goa Legislative Assembly Speaker and Tribal leaders will meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah at the earliest pressing for the long pending demand.
“My government is 100 per cent positive about tribal reservation. We have done correspondence with the concerned department. We will see that in 2027 political reservation is granted to the tribal. We are committed to give political reservation to our tribal people,” he said while addressing a programme to commemorate Bhagwan Bisra Munda on his birth anniversary.
The Chief Minister alleged that “some” are trying to pollute the environment using the issue. “It has become a political tool for some… Those who never contributed for the tribal people and never gave any scheme are raising voices. I would say rather they have done injustice to the tribal community,” he said, adding it is the BJP government which has given justice to the tribal community.
He recalled that it was during the Atal Bihari Vajapayee government that the three tribes were included in ST. “Also former Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar designed many schemes for the tribal and today we are implementing them fully,” he said.
Speaking to media persons at the sidelines, Sawant said “the current protest is politically motivated. We have made it very clear that by 2027 polls ST will get the political reservation and accordingly our government is following it up continuously”.
He said that as per law, the Delimitation Commission has to be set up and Census has to take place.
The Central government, via a communication to Goa government in July,, declined its proposal to grant political reservation to ST in 2027 assembly polls. The Legislative Department- Government of India said that the next delimitation exercise and the readjustment of seats, including the number of seats to be reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) and ST would be done after the new Delimitation Commission is constituted based on the census taken after 2026.
Since then, the ‘Mission Political Reservation for Scheduled Tribe of Goa’ (MPRSTG) are up in arms against the government and have even threatened to boycott the upcoming Lok Sabha polls if the reservation is not granted before the 2024 parliamentary elections.
Opposition parties have criticised the BJP government over the issue alleging ‘double engines’ have failed.
