Team herald
PANJIM: A delegation of Scheduled Tribes (ST) communities led by Sanguem independent MLA Prasad Gaonkar on Monday submitted a memorandum to the Chief Electoral officer (CEO) Kunal at Altinho, urging him to reserve seats for the community in the 40-member Goa Assembly as per its population.
If you enjoyed reading this article, you can help support our journalism by adding OHeraldo as a preferred source.
After submitting the memorandum, Gaonkar said that demand of political reservation was pending for a long time and that till date only one Assembly constituency was reserved for Scheduled Caste (SC) communities. He said that Goa government included Gawda, Kunbi and Velip communities in the ST list in 2003 and since then the political reservation was pending.
Gaonkar said that the Article 332 (1) of Constitution of India mandates that seats should be reserved for SC and ST in the Legislative Assembly of every State.
According to Gaonkar, as per 2011 Census, the total ST communities population in Goa was 12 per cent and as per total population of Goa, four Assembly seats had to be reserved for ST communities.
