MARGAO
The Mission Political Reservations upped the ante in support of their demand for political reservations to the ST community before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, with members of the ST community from Salcete joining the bandwagon in support of the movement.
In fact, newly elected president of the Mission and Davorlim Sarpanch Herculano Niasso has urged Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to submit the Proposal for Political Reservations of Seats under Article 330 and 332 of Constitution of India, on priority.
Niasso has warned that the ongoing movement will be intensified further if the government does not act on the demand.
As Salcete Block President of the Misison, Niasso said he will hold awareness in every village panchayat and planned to conduct 20 meetings at panchayat level in the coming days.
Members of 14 Scheduled Tribe organizations along with elected Panchas, Sarpanchas and ZP members had met on April 13 at Margao had resolved to boycott the Lok Sabha elections of 2024 if notification regarding reservation of seats for Scheduled Tribes in the Goa Assembly is not issued prior to Parliamentary election.
President of Mission Adv. Joao Fernandes has appealed to the members to join this mass Movement to achieve the goal of getting political reservation before 2024 Lok Sabha Elections.
Mission’s Executive Member, Rachol Sarpanch Joseph Vaz urged the people to remain united and come together to protect the identity, culture and rights of Scheduled Tribes communities.
Executive member of the Mission Rama Kankonkar was furious at the Government for not allocating the tribal Sub-plan funds as per budgetary provisions.
“The Scheduled Tribes of Goa are eligible to get Rs 2500 crores funds every year for developmental work of tribal villages, for their basic needs such as construction of roads, schools, providing water & electricity in every village and for self-employment schemes. However. hardly Rs 200 crores per year is being spent every year”, he said.
Kankonkar further explained that there are 3000 backlogs of vacancies in government jobs, 10,000 forest rights claims pending and Scheduled areas are yet to be notified.
