Rajasthan agrees to 4% special Gurjjar quota

The standoff between Gurjjars agitating for Scheduled Tribe status and the Rajasthan government ended today after the state agreed to provide 4 per cent reservation to the Gurjjar community under a special category. The state also agreed not to raise any objection to the mention of the Gurjjar tribe in the list of 23 caste/tribes sent by the Centre in December 1999, asking Rajasthan if it had any objection to the list under consideration for SC/ST reservation.

The Rajasthan government, sources said, has not agreed to make any specific recommendation of ST status for the Gurjjars but will not stand in the way of a list compiled by the Centre. Incidentally, the list is a compilation of castes and tribes recommended or forwarded by the state from time to time until 1999 for consideration of reservation.

The final announcement of the agreement will be made by Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje tomorrow morning. She will make the “solution publicly known”. A senior Rajasthan BJP leader, part of the group representing the state government in talks, said that “the OBC and ST quotas might not be touched at all”.

Gurjjar leader K S Bainsla told The Indian Express: “The talks have been successful and a formal announcement will be made tomorrow morning. All I can say is that the Gurjjars have succeeded in getting a historical breakthrough.”

To read the full article, click here...
To read the ePaper, visit: http://epaper.indianexpress.com

Gurjjar impasse continues as Bainsla sends Raje back empty-handed

With the toll in the Gujjar violence up to 38 dead and 80 injured, the Rajasthan government was today no closer to a break through. Gurjjar leader Col Kirori Singh Bainsla refused to travel to Jaipur for talks, and showed no signs of bending down as Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje flew down to Bayana, where the protestors continue to hold their stir.

Raje stayed for about 40 minutes and sent a message to Bainsla, who was at Kherawadi, about 15 km from Bayana. However, addressing a late-evening media conference, Bainsla ruled out talks unless the state government came out with a letter to the Centre recommending ST status for Gurjjars.

He also claimed that the Chief Minister had not come to Bayana - near the Dumria Railway Station, on the Delhi Mumbai rail route - for talks with him, but to survey the situation in the wake of the Gujjar agitation.

After that, Raje went back and called a meeting of her Cabinet, which was going on till late in the night.

Before leaving for Bayana, the Chief Minister had held a press conference at her residence in the state capital, waming that there was a limit to everything and that she would not allow the Gugjars to hold the state to ransom.

She also repeated that while her government was open for talks to resolve the issue peacefully, Bainsla had been rejecting her appeals. Bainsla and his supporters insist that any dialogue should take place on the railway tracks, in front of protestors.

To read the full article, click here...
To read the ePaper, visit: http://epaper.indianexpress.com