The National Dalit Mahapanchayat (NDM), a New Delhi-based forum for Dalit rights, raised demand of 'separate electorate' for SC/ST communities, claiming that the general category people exert full influence in the reserved Lok Sabha and assembly constituencies across the country even now because of mixed electorate and therefore the issues of Dalits and tribals remain unrepresented.
Separate electorates are usually demanded by minority communities who feel it would otherwise be difficult for them to get fair representation in government. It means that only members of a particular community will vote for a candidate of a reserved seat for that community.
In a press conference in Bhopal on Wednesday, president of the NDM, Indresh Gajbhiye, said the forum is also demanding revoking of the 1932 Poona Pact between Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi, which did away with the implementation of a separate electorate system in the provincial legislative assemblies in British India.
He said a national level Dalit mahapanchayat will be held in Delhi on November 20 on this issue and following this, a representation with demands will be submitted to the President of India and the prime minister. Later, in December, state level Dalit panchayats and demonstrations will be held and representations submitted to respective governors.
Speaking to THE WEEK, Gajbhiye said despite reservation of seats for scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs) in the country, these communities have remained largely unrepresented and their issues never taken up by the elected reserved category representatives. This, Gajbhiye said, is because only 40 per cent of the electorate are of reserved categories even in these reserved seats, while 60 per cent belong to general categories.
“Multiple reserved category candidates vie in the polls and the reserved category votes are therefore divided and the candidate supported by general category normally wins. This elected candidate is then normally under influence of the general categories and fails to take up the issues of the category to which he/she belongs. This is the reason why SC/STs have failed to get proper representation and their issues have remained ignored across the country,” Gajbhiye, former chairman of the MP Scheduled Caste Finance Development Corporation, said. At present, 132 seats in Lok Sabha and around 850 in state assemblies are reserved for SC/STs.
Gajbhiye said it was under severe pressure of Congress leaders following indefinite fast by Mahatma Gandhi in 1932 that Ambedkar was forced to agree to the Poona Pact against the decision of the then British prime minister Ramsay MacDonald to give separate electorates to depressed (backward) classes for the election to provincial legislative assemblies.
“Ambedkar felt that the MLAs/MPs of depressed classes should get elected only by the votes of these communities and worked fearlessly for their upliftment. However, this provision was done away with under Poona Pact and in the past 70 years, we have seen the representatives of these depressed classes remaining handicapped and no work for actual upliftment of these classes have been done. Therefore, it is imperative that the system of separate electorate is now implemented,” Gajbhiye said.