Ready to hold talks with government, says Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla
Protest on rail tracks enters day 2, 14 trains cancelled, 16 diverted.
Gujjar leaders continued their agitation for the second consecutive day.
Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla on Friday agreed “in principle” to talk to the Rajasthan government, even as the community members continued their agitation here for the second consecutive day to press for 5 per cent quota in jobs, leading to disruption of train services.
“We have received an invitation for talks from the government and have agreed to it in principle. The time and place are yet to be decided,” said Bainsla, who leads Gurjar Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti.
As hundreds of agitators squatted on tracks along the Delhi-Mumbai route, members of Gujjar community earlier in the day rejected the state government’s offer for talks. Several trains have been diverted while road traffic on Bharatpur-Hindaun road has also been affected, police said.
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So far, 14 trains have been cancelled, while 16 have been diverted, according to a railway bulletin.
While Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje deputed state Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria to hold talks with the community members, besides forming a cabinet sub-committee comprising senior ministers Rajendra Rathore, Hem Singh Bhadana and Arun Chaturvedi, Bainsla insisted the Chief Minister needed to intervene herself rather than leaving it to others. The state government invited Bainsla for talks earlier in the day.
Asked about the agitation causing inconvenience to people, Bainsla said the community’s demands were justified and it was the government’s “complacence” that had led them to block rail tracks.
“The community is yet to get its first IAS officer, so you can imagine what they are going through. People get upset if their trains are delayed, but what about our demands,” he asked. “We took out our Nyay Yatra for 11 days, but no one listened to us. We don’t like to cause inconvenience, but we have no alternative. My people are desperate. Their wrath is volatile.”
He suggested the Gujjars’ demands could be accommodated by forming a category within the OBC.
“I am not a legal expert, but we want our 5 per cent quota within the constitutionally mandated 50 per cent. There could be categories within the OBC like in Kerala and Karnataka,” he said.
Bainsla assured Gujjars would not indulge in no violence during their protest. “There can be stray incidents, even Gandhiji could not have controlled those,” he said. The Gujjar community, when it initially demanded Scheduled Tribe status, had faced opposition from the Meena community, which is equally dominant in this part of Rajasthan and enjoys the ST status.
This time around, with Gujjars demanding a 5 per cent chunk within the OBC category, Jats, the most dominant community enjoying the OBC status, are likely to get upset.
The 50 per cent quota break up allows for 15 per cent reservation for STs, 7.5 per cent for SCs, 27 per cent for the Other Backward Classes.
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