PANJIM: Following the continuous protests against having 70 per cent of the wards reserved in Quepem Municipal Council (QMC) polls, the Directorate of Municipal Administration (DMA) has agreed to rectify the notification of reservations in the Quepem municipal wards.
On Friday, a large number of people from Quepem gathered outside the DMA office led by former chairperson of Quepem Municipal Council Dayesh Naik and candidate Chetan Halarnkar who were both elected unopposed before the recent Supreme Court (SC) verdict. Former chairperson Rahul Pereira was also part of the delegation that met the DMA.
The protestors claimed that it was an injustice for Quepem, which was the only municipal council in Goa that had reservations of more than 50 per cent and that this was against the SC guidelines. Presently nine of the 13 ward in Quepem municipality have been reserved. The protestors warned of approaching the High Court and SC if their grievances were not addressed immediately.
They had been apparently demanding action for some time now, had even written to the DMA but they had received no reply, so they all travelled all the way to Panjim, revealed the protesters.
When they met DMA Director Gurudas Pilarnekar, he informed that the SC judgment over not permitting more than 50 per cent reservation, excluding women, was issued on March 4. Incidentally, this SC judgement was related to Maharashtra.
Pilarnekar then pointed out that the High Court had given its judgement on the Goa matter on March 1 and that this judgement was later upheld by the SC.
He admitted that reservation in Quepem is above 50 per cent but said that this was nothing new and had been done so earlier as well.
He however informed the delegation that following the March 4 SC judgment, there would be a re-notification for Quepem to address this problem. He said the reservation for OBC would be reduced to strike the balance, while reservation for SC and ST will remain the same.
