PANAJI
In a major step forward on the path to ensuring a reserved quota of seats in the Goa legislative assembly for Scheduled Tribes communities, the Centre is expected to introduce a bill in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal is scheduled to introduce 'The Readjustment of Representation of Scheduled Tribes in Assembly Constituencies of the State of Goa Bill 2024' to enable reservation in line with Article 332 of the Constitution.
Although the strength of the Scheduled Tribes (adivasi) population in Goa is multiple times more than that of Scheduled Castes (Dalits), not a single seat is reserved for them in the State's Legislature. The Dalits have one (Pernem).
Meghwal is set to introduce this bill on Monday, ostensibly to correct this anomaly of no seats for adivasis which came about by a quirk of fate as Goa's Kunbi, Gauda and Velip communities got included by a Central legislation much after the 2002 Delimitation of Assembly Constituencies carried out on the basis of the 2001 Census which had pegged the State's ST population at just 566.
The Central legislation to include the Gauda-Kunbi-Velip communities in the ST list came only in 2003 and it increased Goa's ST population to what current estimates say is above 11 per cent.
The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the Bill which Meghwal is scheduled to introduce in the Lok Sabha on Monday states:
“A peculiar situation has arisen in the State, wherein the population of the Scheduled Tribes in the state vis-à-vis the population of Scheduled Castes is considerably higher… but no seats are reserved for Scheduled Tribes and they are unable to avail the constitutional benefit of reservation afforded to them by article 332.”
The 2011 Census pegs Goa’s population at 14.58 lakh, including 25,449 SCs and 1,49,275 STs.
The demand for political reservation for STs in the Legislature has dominated political discourse in Goa for several years and peaked on the eve of the recent Lok Sabha elections with the 'Mission Political Reservation' stir by the ST communities being intensified over the last one year.
