SUNDAY, JULY 28, 2024
Team Herald
PANJIM: The GAKUVED Federation on Sunday asked the State government to come out with a notification with regards to reserving four seats for ST community in Goa Assembly within 48 hours or face hunger strike.
Addressing a press conference, GAKUVED General Secretary Rupesh Velip alleged that the State government was playing tricks to deny constitutional rights of political reservation to scheduled tribes community of Goa.
He said, “On February 24, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant along with ST delegation met Home Minister Amit Shah who assured to take up urgent matter in the upcoming cabinet meeting of central ministers scheduled on February 28, 2024, and pass a resolution to constitute delimitation commission before the code of conduct of parliamentary elections.”
“But it was surprising to learn that though the meeting was held a day later but no resolution or decision was passed nor ordinance was issued on reservation despite of several assurances by successive governments for the past 20 years,” he said.
Velip expressed dissatisfaction on the delay tactics and urged to resolve the long pending demand on priority basis before the code of conduct for the Lok Sabha elections comes into force.
He stated that the Supreme Court of India in 2012 in its landmark judgement in the case of Virendra Pratap v/s Union of India had directed Election Commission of India to decide on the ST seats of all states within three months, and in 2013 Bombay High Court had directed Election Commission to declare ST seats in Goa within 8 months but the successive governments failed to act and give justice to the Scheduled Tribes of Goa.
“Our only demand is that since the delimitation commission was already constituted in 2020 to reserve seats for Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland under chairmanship of Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai, the Modi government should send recommendation to the President for promulgation of ordinance and include Goa in Gazzette notification of Ministry of Law and Justice dated 6.3.2020 or come up with similar notification for state of Goa and bring final notification to reserve four constituencies for Scheduled Tribes of Goa in Assembly or at part with Jammu and Kashmir, issue similar executive order for constitution of delimitation commission for state of Goa to provide reservation to scheduled tribes of Goa in Assembly before 2024 parliamentary elections instead of constituting fresh delimitation commission which will take long time and we may not get reservation even in 2027 assembly elections,” Velip said.
He further said that in case the government failed to accept GAKUVED's demand, the members of the ST community will be forced to start a chain hunger strike.
