PANAJI
The much awaited crucial Bill- Readjustment of Representation of Scheduled Tribes in Assembly Constituencies of the State of Goa Bill, 2024, aimed at providing reservation to STs in Legislative Assembly of Goa is likely to come up for discussion and passing during the ongoing sessions of the Parliament.
The Bill to provide for the readjustment of Assembly constituencies, introduced in the Lok Sabha during the last session held in August, is listed as one among the 16 bills which are likely to be taken up before the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha for discussion.
At present, the Goa Assembly has 40 seats, of which one is reserved for Scheduled Caste, while no seat is reserved for STs. The number of seats to be reserved will be based on the ST population in the State.
The Union Ministry for Law and Justice, while introducing the Bill, stated “it is imperative to enact a law to provide for enabling provisions empowering the Election Commission to make amendments in Delimitation of Parliamentary and Assembly Constituencies Order, 2008 and readjust seats in Legislative Assembly of the State of Goa for STs.
According to the Statement of Objects and Reasons, “Since, the exercise of delimitation was initiated in 2002, the population of STs in the State of Goa was recorded at that time in the census figures of 2001 as only 566, whereas the total population of the State of Goa was more than 13 lakh”.
The government added three new communities, namely, Kunbi, Gawda and Velip in the List of STs in Goa. This increased the ST population in the state.
“Thus, a peculiar situation has arisen in the state, wherein the population of STs in the State vis-à-vis the population of SCs is considerably higher… but no seats are reserved for STs and they are unable to avail constitutional benefit of reservation afforded to them by Article 332,” the Bill stated further.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had repeatedly assured the community to give political reservation in the 2027 polls. He said that based on 2011 census, STs can get three to four seats reserved.
Last year, the Centre had declined Goa’s proposal to grant political reservation to ST in 2027 assembly polls stating that the next delimitation exercise and the readjustment of seats, would be done after the new Delimitation Commission is constituted based on the census taken after 2026.
Following this, earlier this year in February, CM had led a delegation to Centre pressing for the demand in response to ST community state wide agitation under the banner Mission Political Reservation for ST, demanding reserving seats in State Assembly.
