Hardik Patel’s hunger strike at Gujarat: Deve Gowda writes to Modi
Bengaluru, September 3: Former Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda has written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Patidar community protests and youth leader Hardik Patel’s hunger strike in Gujarat.
In the letter, Gowda said that in recent days, he has been observing the Patidar community’s protests in Gujarat. Youth leader of the same community Hardik Patel has been fighting for their rights for the last three years. Now, he has started hunger strike. He is just 25 years old. At this young age, he has been fighting for the welfare of his community. Considering his health and pro-social activities and fights, the central and state government should take steps to fulfill his demands, he said.
When he was the prime minister in 1996, the Jat community in Rajasthan had submitted a representation demanding backward class status to their community as the community was financially backward. So, he had constituted the Backward Classes Commission and asked it to submit a report. The Commission had recommended to include the Jat community to the backward classes category as the community lagging behind in all sectors. Based on it, he had included the community to the OBC category, he recalled.
But the court had stayed the decision of his government then. Later, the central government had convinced the court on the need to provide the OBC status to the Jat community and included it in the OBC list. In the same way, the government should consider the demands of the Patidar community and constitute a commission to study their condition and implement its report, he urged Modi.
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Assam to lift all cases against Koch Rajbongshis in Foreigners' Tribunals: CM Himanta Biswa Sarma
Guwahati, Apr 4 (PTI): The Assam cabinet has decided to lift all cases pending against people from the Koch Rajbongshi community in the Foreigners' Tribunals, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Friday.
They will also no longer carry the tag of 'D' or doubtful voters, he said.
''There are 28,000 cases pending in different Foreigners' Tribunals in the state against people of the community. The cabinet has taken a historic decision of lifting the cases with immediate effect,'' Sarma said at a press conference here after the cabinet meeting.
The government believes that the Koch Rajbongshis are an indigenous community of the state and they are an inextricable part of ''our social and cultural fabric'', he asserted.
The people of this community are poor and have suffered a lot over the years, he said.
''They will no longer carry the tag of foreigners or ‘D’ voters,'' the CM said.
Foreigners Tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies, particularly in Assam, established to determine if a person residing in India is a "foreigner" as defined by the Foreigners Act of 1946, based on the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order of 1964.
These tribunals are designed to address matters related to citizenship and the presence of “foreigners” in India, specifically focusing on cases where someone is suspected of being an illegal immigrant.
There are 100 Foreigners’ Tribunals across Assam.
The Koch Rajbongshis have a sizeable presence in Assam, West Bengal, Meghalaya, and parts of Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan, and they demand Scheduled Tribe status.
