BJSM opposes granting ST (P) or ST (N) status to Koch Rajbongshis

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOKRAJHAR: On the issue of granting partly ST (P) status and partly ST (N) status to Koch Rajbongshis by transferring OBC quota, the president of the Bodoland Janajati Suraksha Mancha (BJSM), Janaklal Basumatary on Tuesday said that ST status could be accorded only to ethnic communities which fulfil the required criteria but it could not be given to immigrant communities.

Basumatary said that Koch and Rajbongshi were separate castes in Bengal, Meghalaya and even in Assam. "No ST status can be granted to a community which is not an ethnic community. The Koch community has already said that they are not Rajbongshi. The Government of Assam cannot ignore this claim," he said, adding that the Rajbongshis made a dishonest claim that they were the descendants of the royal family of Cooch Behar kingdom, who are neither Rajbongshi nor Koch but belong to the Mech dynasty. He said that they were 16th century migrants to the Mech country of Biswa Singha, son of Haoria Mech and grandson of Dambaru Mech.

"The Mech country was later named as Cooch Behar in 1886 by Mech Raja Nripendra Narayan. There is no mention of Rajbongshi. They become kshatriya during the British rule, clarifying that Koch and Rajbongshi were separate castes. Suppressing this fact, they claimed to be Koch Rajbongshi since they started demanding ST status in Assam," he said and added, "The Pradhan committee reported that the Rajbongsies are extended to West Bengal and so the RGI (Registrar General of India) observed that they are more Hindu than the tribe, as in West Bengal they are Hindu caste and recognized as Scheduled Caste for constitutional benefit and Koches are also included in caste Hindu separately and granted Scheduled Caste separately in West Bengal."

Basumatary further said, "The RGI rejected their ST claim several times. These conditions have not changed. So the State Government cannot transfer their OBC constitutional benefits to ST benefit." He added that Koch Rajbongshi could not be ST (Plain) and ST (New) in different parts of the plains of Assam. There was no such provision in the Constitution, he added.

The tribal leader said that in Kokrajhar and Chirang districts, there were mostly Bengali, Pakistani and Bangladeshi migrants. They were more advanced than tribal people of Assam and they were not tribal communities in Assam. "If they are granted ST status, the existing tribals will lose their political and land reservation rights. They are enjoying OBC constitutional benefits for job, education, admissions and other domestic benefits," he said, adding further, "The government cannot justify transferring this OBC quota to ST quota without harming the existing ST people. So the government proposal to distribute ST quota from OBC quota will be ultra vires of the constitutional purpose and illegal with malafide intention." Basumatary reiterated that granting ST(P) or ST(N) status to Koch Rajbongshi was not possible constitutionally.

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