Team Herald
NEW DELHI: Goa’s Congress Member of Parliament (MP) Shantaram Naik on Thursday expressed concern in the Rajya Sabha that the Scheduled Tribes (ST) of Gawda, Velip and Kunbi constituted 12% of the State’s population, and yet not a single seat was reserved for them in the state assembly.
There should have been at least six to seven seats reserved for STs in the 40-member Assembly, but these communities have no honourable place in their land despite being its original settlers, he said in a special mention. Only one seat of Pernem is reserved for the Scheduled Castes.
Digging up a lost case of 2003-2004 when the Delimitation Commission rejected the Congress plea to reserve seats for the STs, Naik blamed then BJP government in Goa headed by Manohar Parrikar, who is now the Defence Minister, for not cooperating and his party making no representation for reservation despite the three communities declared STs in 2002.
A tiff broke out between them as Parrikar, present in the House, protested at Naik dragging his name. Both accused each other of not understanding the basic issue even as Deputy Chairman Prof P J Kurien quipped that he would not come between the two Goans challenging each other.
Parrikar said it was during the Atal Behari Vajpayee government that the three Goan communities were given the ST status through a Constitution amendment in 2002 and accordingly the state government extended them all benefits applicable to the STs. He said the Congress was in power at the Centre thereafter for two consecutive terms but it did nothing further.
Naik jumped to his feet to assert that they got the ST status only because of the Congress demand and asserted that the issue he had raised before the House was why the three communities did not get the seats reserved for them in the Assembly despite having been notified as Scheduled Tribes.
Both then started accusing each other of not understanding the issue. Naik reiterated that it were the BJP who did not make any representation before the Delimitation Commission because of which these communities could not get seats in the Goa Assembly. He said the issue was not on their declaration as STs.
Naik made out a case in his special mention to reserve six or seven seats in the Goa Assembly for the STs, pointing out that the case was lost in 2004 as the Delimitation Commission did not have the Census figures of the three communities despite notified as STs.
He said the Delimitation Commission during its visit to Goa at that time did not heed to the Congress demand to order a special census to establish the STs’ percentage in the state’s total population. The Census authorities in Goa had told him that they would not have taken more than a month to give the figures.
Naik also cited directions of the Allahabad High Court to carry out the delimitation of Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes constituencies throughout the country where representation was not given to these communities. He said a Bill was subsequently introduced in the Rajya Sabha for the purpose but it could not be taken up due to various factors.
