Deputy Chief Minister and Urban Development Minister Francis D’Souza, on being asked to justify why Ward 11 of the Margao Municipal Council has not been reserved for women this time despite it not having been done so for the past 4 terms, replied “The ward has been reserved for OBC”. The reply reeked of manipulation and made one wonder whether the Dy CM of the state had any understanding of the rationale of reservation and the obvious gender issue involved. With reservations declared on the very eve of the Code of Conduct coming into effect, the entire reservation process displays an apparent BJP color that resembles their post-2014 national agenda of ‘divide and rule’.
The Hindu population in Ward 4 of Margao in Fatorda Constituency is almost double that of the Catholic and Muslim populations respectively. Yet this ward has been reserved for Scheduled Tribes. Undoubtedly the ward, which comprises of areas that belonged to the previous Ward 3, has the highest ST population in the entire Municipal area, but the ward having been reserved for ST last time has again been reserved for ST in complete contravention of the rotation policy of reservation. The unfortunate reality is that the ST Councilor of the ward will be chosen by Hindus. Another point of significance is that in this ward, Muslims, who make up nearly 25% of the ward as against a mere 3-7% in other wards, have been denied a chance of representation due to the ST reservation. As they will obviously blame the STs for this, the color here is to deny representation to minorities and instigate animosity between the minority communities.
On the other hand, Ward 8 in Borda, which comprises of areas of the erstwhile Ward 9 with a predominant ST population, has not been reserved for ST for the second successive year. A ward which houses a major chunk of the ST population has not got any reservation for STs for the second successive term.
Ward 9 which consists of Marlem area in Fatorda has been painted with the same color. It has been reserved for OBC Women. Ironically, no Catholic belonging to the OBC category resides within its limits. OBCs of the Catholic community are usually traditional ‘Renders’ or ‘Tellis’, but these sub-castes have no presence in this area.
The delimitation process has also been done such that 9 of the 12 wards of Fatorda Constituency have a majority of Hindus. The numbers indicate that the wards have been delimited to ensure that the majority community enjoy majority vote share in 75% of the wards thus becoming the de-facto decision makers of the composition of the Margao Municipal Council. All this has been done to allow the fundamentalist ideology of the ruling dispensation to flourish and to further their divisive national agenda.
To add to this various activists and BJP party workers belonging to the minority community will contest as “non-official” candidates to ensure division of the minority votes to ensure victories of the cadre as official BJP candidates.
(The writer is actively involved in the social field)
