'ST status cannot be granted to six communities without harming interest of existing ST communities'

OUR CORRESPONDENT

KOKRAJHAR: The Bodoland Janajati Suraksha Mancha (BJSM) on Tuesday reiterated that granting of Scheduled Tribe (ST) reservation quota to six communities of Assam will weigh down the rights and privileges of existing STs of the state.

In a statement, the president of the BJSM, Janaklal Basumatary said the Assam Chief Minister's explanation regarding inability of submitting report for granting ST reservation quota to six communities was not true and it is not because the tribal people objected to it but because they cannot report the granting of ST reservation quota to six communities without causing harm to the existing ST communities, as required by the Government of India.

Basumatary said that the tea workers' community converted to 36 different individual communities with the five other communities, including Ahom, Moran, Matak, Chutiya and Koch Rajbongshi. All of them are already enjoying OBC reservation of constitutional benefits under Article 340 of the Constitution. "In Assam, they enjoy 27 per cent reservation in this category. In jobs and civil services, they corner half of the general quota in the merit list in addition to their 27 per cent OBC quota. The ST plains of Assam enjoy only 10 per cent reservation. Many times, this percentage is also not filled up for want of qualified candidates. So the OBC beneficiaries enjoy more advantages than the existing Scheduled Tribes of Assam. Now they propose to grant ST quota to the 41 communities by transferring the OBC quota to the ST quota without sharing the existing 10 per cent ST quota of plains of Assam. The reason is that it will not harm the existing STs," he said.

"There is political reservation for Scheduled Caste category under Article 341 of the Constitution having MP, MLA reservation under Articles 330 and 332 respectively of the Constitution of India. There is land and political reservation for Scheduled Tribe category under Article 342 of the Constitution having land reservation under Article 244(1)(2) in 5th and land with self rule in 6th schedule of the Constitution, MP, MLA reservation under Articles 330 and 332 respectively of the Constitution of India. So the inter-category quota transfer is not permissible. The OBC category quota cannot be transferred to ST category quota. It will affect the political and land reservation of existing Scheduled Tribes. The OBC beneficiaries do not require land and political reservations because of their numerical and material advantage," he said.

Basumatary said that the proposals for ST status to the six communities were earlier examined by the RGI, Government of India, on several occasions and rejected more than two times by the RGI with valid reasons. Under the prevailing modalities of ST granting process, if the RGI rejects more than two times then the government can consider it rejected.

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