 "Chavan faces challenge to Dhangars' ST demand from tribal groups")
The poll bound Congress-Nationalist Congress party government in Maharashtra faces huge challenge to recommend to the Centre a Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the politically influential Dhangar community. This is because Dhangar community, which constitutes 10 million of the state's over 110 million population, and the tribal communities have taken quite a contrary stand.
The Dhangar community, which has a significant presence in 78 of 288 assembly seats has said the reservation benefits that it gets under the Vimukta Jati and Nomadic Tribes (VJNT) is not enough and they should be enlisted in the ST. However, tribal community leaders cutting across the party lines have strongly opposed to provide ST status to Dhangar community citing that Dhangars are not tribals. There are 24 assembly seats reserved for ST while 84 other constituencies where tribal community members are more than 10,000 each.
The Dhangar community has stepped up its agitation close on the heels of state government's decision to provide 16% quota to Marathas and 5% to Muslim communities in job and education.
Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan has held a series of meetings with the core committees of both the Dhangar and ST communities but unable to arrive at a consensus. Dhangar community leaders have launched a state-wide agitation saying that those who will provide ST status to them they will get their vote in the upcoming Assembly elections. On the other hand, ministers from ST have threatened to resign from the council of ministers if the state government decides to recommend to the Centre providing ST status to Dhangar community.
Interestingly, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, which is buoyed by its sterling performance in the Lok Sabha election, has tried to gain political mileage by assuring the Dhangar community to get Modi government's nod for according ST status. This has put pressure on the ruling combine to quickly take a call in this regard.
State tribal development minister Madhukar Pichad, who last week led a delegation of tribal ministers, MPs and legislators to President of India and Congress President, warned that it will be tough time for Congress-NCP to seek support from the tribal community in the assembly polls if the government recommends ST status to Dhangar community. "We have no problem with the Dhangar community's reservation, but we will not allow you to touch our reservation," said Pichad who belongs to the NCP and and a tribal himself.
However, Mahadev Jankar, president of Rashtriya Samaj Party, a constituent of Shiv Sena-BJP led grand alliance (Maha Yuti), opined that a simple replacement of alphabet 'd' with 'r' has kept them out of the ST list.'' The Congress-NCP government merely has to send a simple clarification to the Centre regarding this mistake and all problems will be solved,'' he said and hoped that Modi government will give them a justice.