Call it luck, or simply fate, the Scheduled Tribe communities “ Gawda, Kunbi and Velip “ the former two considered aboriginals of Goa, missed out on reservations of seats for their communities in the Goa legislative assembly, when the exercise of delimitation was carried out twice “ in 1987-88 when Goa got Statehood and the strength of the legislature was raised from 30 to 40, and when in 2002-04 the redrawing of the constituencies was done along with the national exercise conducted then.
Goa attained statehood on May 30, 1987, and the State legislature's strength was increased to 40 from 30 (28 actually as two seats of the erstwhile Union Territory's Legislature were from the outlying Daman and Diu which were detached).
No quota in 1987-88
The natural corollary was to hold a delimitation process to carve out the 40 constituencies. It was carried out in 1987-88 and reservation of seats was confined to the solitary seat of Dhargalim for the Scheduled Caste community (Mar and Chamar). The Gawda, Kunbi and Velip communities who now collectively comprise the State's Scheduled Tribes (STs) missed out on a quota in this exercise, because they were not yet accepted by the Centre as STs and were, at the time, classified as OBCs not qualified for reservations in State assemblies and Parliament.
Miss out again in 2002
About fifteen years later in 2002, another delimitation to geographically redraw Goa's two Lok Sabha seats and 40 assembly constituencies was held over more than two years. The three ST communities missing out on reservation of seats in the State Legislature in this round, has been even more agonising for them as they had been formally accepted and notified as such by the Central government in 2003.
While the demand for seat reservations for the ST communities was raised before the Justice (Retd) Kuldeep Singh-led Delimitation Commission, it did not hold water as it was not backed by official data related to population census figures of the 1991 Census taken into account.
Let down again
It is not anyone's case that Goa's scheduled tribe communities are not entitled to political reservations and a quota of seats in the 40-member Goa legislative assembly. In fact, all political parties have backed the demand and a resolution making the demand got the unanimous backing of all MLAs in the just concluded monsoon session of the House. Nonetheless, the reality is that there is no quota for them out of sheer quirk of fate and it will take an out of the box approach, possibly a Constitutional Amendment, if their demand is to be fulfilled before the next scheduled assembly election in 2027.
