Team Herald
PONDA: Gomantak Kalaikars Samaj (GKS) President Ravindra Matkar on Sunday condemned Gomantak Bhandari Samaj (GBS) President Ashok Naik for making demand with Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant to delete Kalaikars Samaj name from the list of Other Backward Class (OBC) in the State stating that Kalaikars Samaj never existed in Goa before 1961.
Addressing the media persons, Matkar along with office bearers, said, “There are 19 communities in OBC list in Goa and one among them is Kalaikars Samaj.”
“Kalaikars Samaj has Goan origin and we have proof of our existence. Due to poverty, our Samaj members were carrying out alloy surfacing of copper and brass utensils in Goa since very long. The 19 OBC communities in Goa are united and it includes GKS and GBS. However, GBS President Ashok alleges that that our GKS Samaj never existed before Goa Liberation. We are never against or opposed GBS demand for 19 per cent reservation for their community,” he said.
“GBS, being the big community and ours being small, we were expecting his support but instead he demands to delete our Samaj from OBC. We reject his claims and condemn him,” Matkar added. “We have birth certificates of our forefathers born in 1935 and many have property purchase documents during Portuguese era.
Our Samaj was registered in 1998 and after conducting proper inquiry was included in the OBC list in the year 2000 by OBC Commission. Our population is around 5,000 in Goa,” he claimed.
He said, “We will write to the Chief Minister about our Samaj along with our demands.”
