Staff Reporter

Panaji

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Friday assured a state delegation that the proposal seeking formation of a delimitation commission to reserve assembly seats for scheduled tribes of Goa will be placed before the Union cabinet on February 28.

Shah assured the panel led by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant that reservation of assembly seats for the STs would be done before the 2027 assembly elections.

“I wholeheartedly thank the Union Home Minister for assuring an early resolution,” Sawant said in his social media post.

Assembly Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar, who was part of the delegation, told ‘The Navhind Times’ that Shah assured that a note would be moved before the Union cabinet on February 28.

The note will be on constituting a delimitation commission for the state.

The Union minister has categorically said assembly seats will be reserved for the STs before the 2027 assembly polls, Tawadkar said.

The delegation that met Shah in New Delhi on Friday evening comprised the Speaker, Art and Culture Minister Govind Gaude, MLAs Ganesh Gaonkar, Antonio Vas, Rajya Sabha MP Sadandand Shet Tanawade, former minister Prakash Velip and chairperson of the Goa Commission of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Deepak Karmalkar.

Former MLA Vasudev Meng Gaonkar, former deputy chief minister Chandrakant Kavlekar, president of the Mission Political Reservation for STs of Goa Joao Fernandes and other tribal leaders were also part of the delegation.

The Mission Political Reservation for STs of Goa, an umbrella body of the 16 tribal organisations, has threatened to boycott the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls if a notification reserving four seats is not issued before the poll code comes into force.

The body insists that reservation must be done as the per 2011 Census report, which recorded 10.23% ST population in Goa.