Margao: A day after state govt moved Supreme Court to clear legal hurdles to political reservation for Scheduled Tribes, tribal groups in Goa said assurances were no longer enough and warned that ST voters would “teach the party in office a lesson” in the 2027 assembly polls.Members of Gawda, Kunbi and Velip communities, who gathered at Cumbharjua under the banner of ‘Scheduled Tribes of Goa’, later took out a mashal (torchlight) rally. Organisers said the torchlight campaign would travel to tribal villages across the state.The protest comes as govt challenges Bombay high court’s interim order barring the census commissioner from notifying ST population figures estimated on any basis other than the first census after 2026. HC had found “absolutely no basis” for presuming the 2001 figure of 9.9%. Tribal welfare minister Ramesh Tawadkar said he expects an SC order before HC’s next hearing on Nov 25, and that reservation will apply from 2027. The notification of population figures is seen as paving the way for reservation of constituencies for STs in the state legislative assembly.At the rally, speakers questioned the basis on which HC rejected the ST population notification. Tribal leader Soiru Velip described the delay as a “preplanned betrayal” and warned that tribal leaders who side with BJP would also be held accountable.Goenche Rakhandar president Rama Kankonkar alleged the delay was intended to protect sitting BJP MLAs. He said the community had helped defeat BJP in South Goa in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, and alleged that tribal sub-plan funds had not reached the intended beneficiaries over the last four years.Convener Rupesh Velip alleged that ST-reserved vacancies remained unfilled and that some posts had disappeared from recruitment. Bhuvaneshwar Fatarpekar said tenancy and mundkarial cases involving tribal families were being sidelined.
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