MARGAO
Speaker & Scheduled Tribe leader Ramesh Tawadkar on Tuesday pooh-poohed the call given by the Mission for Political Reservations for the STs in the State Assembly, saying there’s no need to give such a call when the government is serious about giving the political reservations to the Tribal community in the 2027 Assembly election.
Speaking to The Goan on the sidelines of a programme at the Multipurpose School complex, Borda on Tuesday, the Speaker said he along with Datta Kholkar had raised the issue of political reservations with Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his recent visit to the State, exuding confidence that the Tribal community will get the political reservations by the 2027 Assembly election.
“This is one issue where there is consent and unanimity amongst the Legislators. Chief Minster Pramod Sawant is on record in the Assembly that the issue will be resolved before the 2027 Assembly election. In such a situation, I do not think the threat to boycott the 2024 Lok Sabha polls does hold good,” he said.
He, however, admitted that the issue did not receive the much-needed push from the government's side as well as from the community to implement the political reservations for the tribal community in Goa.
When his attention was drawn to the demand made by the Mission for Political Reservations that the government should resolve the issue before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, Tawadkar said there’s nothing wrong in making the demand, but what is bad is the call given to the community to boycott the 2024 Lok sabha polls.
“I along with Minister Govind Gaude, MLAs Ganesh Gaonkar and Anton Vaz are following up on the issue with the governor. We are all members of the Assembly and we have full faith in the government that the issue will be resolved before the 2027 Assembly polls,” Tawadkar added.
