Sawant-led panel to meet Union ministers over ST quota demand
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Saturday assured the state legislative assembly that he will lead a delegation to Union ministers of tribal affairs and home affairs to press them on setting up a delimitation commission to identify assembly constituencies to be reserved for scheduled tribe communities.
Replying to a calling attention motion, Sawant said the government will make all efforts for issuance of a notification constituting a delimitation commission before the Lok Sabha elections, which will be held in April-May this year.
The Chief Minister said the state has written to Union Minister of State for Law and Judiciary (independent charge) Arjun Meghwal on February 7, pushing for panel formation.
Stating that he is sure that the tribal communities will get reservation of seats for the 2027 assembly polls, Sawant said he is ready to take a delegation comprising Opposition MLAs and members of ST organisations to New Delhi on February 16.
MLAs Vijai Sardesai, Altone D’Costa, Carlos Alvares Ferreira, Venzy Viegas, Cruz Silva, Viresh Borkar, Michael Lobo and Antonio Vas supported the demand for reserving assembly seats for the STs.
They maintained that it is the responsibility of the government to give justice to the aboriginal Goan communities – Gauda, Kunbi and Velip – by reserving assembly constituencies.
The Mission Political Reservation for Scheduled Tribes of Goa, which spearheads the reservation fight, said it will wait till February 16 for the government to make announcement on its long-pending demand.
Speaking to the media outside the state legislative assembly, ST leader John Fernandes and Govind Shirodkar said a notification on delimitation commission should be issued before the Lok Sabha polls so as to ensure that the communities get political reservation for the 2027 assembly elections.
Pushed to the wall by a massive rally taken out by the Mission Political Reservation for Scheduled Tribes of Goa on February 5, Sawant had assured a delegation that the government would try to persuade the Centre on formation of delimitation panel.
According to the 2011 census, ST population in Goa is 10.23%. Tribal organisations have been demanding reservation of four assembly seats for the tribal communities.
Sawant further said that upon perusing the said proposal, legislative department of the Union law ministry on July 28, 2023 submitted to the directorate of tribal welfare and stated that the readjustment of parliamentary and legislative assembly constituencies was undertaken in accordance with the provision of the Delimitation Act, 2002 by Delimitation Commission and the Delimitation Order, 2008 issued by the said Commission is still in force. Further, Article 82 and 170 (2) and the Explanation to Article 330 read with Article 332 of the Constitution provides that until the relevant figures for the first census taken after the year 2026 have been published, it shall not be necessary to readjust the seats in the legislative assembly of each state.
“Therefore, it is clear that the next delimitation exercise and the readjustment of seats, including the number of seats to be reserved for the SCs and STs, would only take place by a delimitation commission to be constituted for the purpose after the relevant figures of the census taken after the year 2026 are published,” he added.
