Former MLAs Dayanand Mandrekar and Kiran Kandolkar, along with Bhandari Samaj leaders, recently met Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to push for the inclusion of the Bhandari community in the 2026 population census, which will be conducted alongside the national census.
This meeting marks a continuation of the community’s sustained efforts, as they had previously met the Chief Minister on the same issue. CM Pramod Sawant has now assured them that the community's request will be addressed during the 2026 census.
The Bhandari leaders highlighted that since the last census in 2011, there has been no updated or accurate data on the population of Other Backward Classes (OBCs), Scheduled Castes, and Scheduled Tribes in Goa. They argued that the absence of such data leads to injustice for communities like the Bhandaris, particularly in terms of proportional quotas in reservation policies and access to government schemes such as scholarships, subsidies, and welfare programs.