Dalits not reserved seats, say activists
September 30, 2011
By A R Meyyammai
DC
Madurai
Social justice has been denied to dalits with regard to reservation in
the local body elections to Madurai corporation, say dalit activists.
Though as per the reservation policy of Tamil Nadu, 18 per cent should
have been reserved for dalits, not even half of it has been earmarked
to them under the SC category, they say.
According to the notification of reserved and general wards for the
expanded Madurai city municipal corporation dated September 12, 2011,
four out of the 100 territorial wards have been reserved for SC
(general), two for SC (women), 32 for women (general) and the
remaining 62 have been earmarked as general wards. No ward has been
allotted either to ST (general) or ST (women).
This notification has come under fire from the activists who claim
that 18 wards should have been allotted for SC and one for ST.
Activist and advocate A. Rajini says, "While the corporation has
expanded from 72 to 100 in terms of the number of wards, the number of
seats allotted to SC remains static with six. The civic body has
failed in its duty to conform to the reservation policy adopted for
the dalits though it has stuck to the 33.33 per cent allocation of
seats for women."
Countering her claims, corporation commissioner S. Natarajan says the
reservation for SC\ST was finalised depending upon the population of
the particular ward.
"The dalit population, according to 2001 census, is only 6.4 per cent
in Madurai city and based on it 6 out of 100 wards have been allotted
to them in the descending order. As the ST population is a merely
0.001 per cent, no ward has been classified under the category."
He also added, "The reservation was applicable only to education and
employment and not for these types of elections."
However, Ms Rajini claims that the population does not have a bearing
on reservation, a constitutionally guaranteed right which is
applicable to political representation too as per the rule of the law
in the state.
Meanwhile, a petition has been filed in the Madurai bench of Madras HC
seeking a direction to suspend the elections to any of the 19 wards in
the corporation on the grounds that reservation policy with respect to
SC\ST has not been followed.
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