Raje recommends 4 to 6% quota for Gujjars

After a cabinet meeting, Rajasthan Raje wrote a letter to PM recommending 4 to 6 per cent reservation for Gujjars.

As the showdown between Rajasthan government and agitating Gujjars’ continued, Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje on Monday sought to push the ball into the Centre’s court by asking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to convene a meeting of states with sizable Gujjar population on their demand for ST status.

With no sign of an end to the four-day-old agitation as both sides stuck to their stands, the heat was turned on thousands of Gujjars led by their leader Kirori Singh Bainsla who are squatting on at Kherawadi village in Bharatpur district with the army cutting off supplies of essential supplies to the area and jamming telecommunication.

After a cabinet meeting in Jaipur, Raje wrote a letter to Singh also recommending 4 to 6 per cent reservation for Gujjars in the category of denotified class of tribals/nomadic tribe, Rajasthan Parliamentary Affairs Minister R S Rathore told reporters in Jaipur.

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Gujjars could also be considered as economically poorer than OBC, the letter suggested.

“This is a sensitive issue and the UPA government should decide it whether to accord and shift Gujjars from OBC category to Scheduled Tribe (ST) and a policy be drawn on this matter”, Rathore said quoting the state cabinet’s decision.

Bainsla, for his part, put forward three conditions before Gujjars can take a decision on the future of their agitation. The conditions are: (1) state government’s recommendation for ST status for Gujjars (2) restoration of food and water to site of agitation and (3) autopsy of 17 Gujjars who died in police firing.

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