Shreya Varanasi, Pune
On Friday, several Scheduled Tribe MLAs including Maharashtra’s Deputy Speaker Narhari Zirwal jumped from the third floor of Mantralaya and landed on the safety net. They took this step in protest of the Dhangar community being granted ST classification and the government’s disregard toward tribal affairs.
Deputy Speaker and Ajit Pawar-led faction Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader, Zirwal was accompanied by fellow NCP leader Kiran Lahamat, Rajesh Patil of the Bahujan Vikas Aghadi (BVA), Congress Party’s Hiraman Khoskar, and Bharatiya Janata Party’s Hemant Savra. Collectively, they protested against the termination of appointments of Scheduled Tribe candidates notified under PESA (The Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension of Scheduled Area) and the provision of Scheduled Tribe status to Dhangars before the assembly elections.
The tribal MLAs have for some time now been fighting for the employment of tribals in government posts under the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) (PESA) Act of 1996. They said that since October 2023, the process of hiring tribals in 17 distinct categories has been blocked at the state government level under the PESA. They stated that recruitment for teachers, forest guards, and numerous other positions in the revenue and health departments have taken place during the past several months. While non-tribal applicants have either joined or received appointment letters, tribal candidates for positions reserved in the PESA have yet to be recruited.
Zirwal, one of the ruling coalition’s most senior tribal MLAs in Maharashtra’s Legislative Assembly, stated that he is first a tribal person before a government official. He further stated that the government must not make any unlawful decisions on the inclusion of Dhangars on the Scheduled Tribes list and demanded that the TISS report on Dhangar reservation should be made public. The Dhangars, a shepherd community, believe that the Dhangad tribe, which has ST classification, is identical to the Dhangars and that a “spelling mistake has cost them the ST status”. The Supreme Court and the Bombay High Court have both dismissed community pleas on the matter.
This is Zirwal’s second agitation. On September 30, he conducted a one-day sit-in protest outside the Mantralaya against the state government’s failure to respond to MLAs from tribal communities’ requests against the inclusion of Dhangars on the ST list. After the incidents of Friday, CM Eknath Shinde is expected to summon the MLAs to a meeting later in the afternoon to address their differences.