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Day 6: Gujjars stay put

Special Correspondent

— PHOTO: PTI

Gujjars stage a dharna on the rail track at Pilupura village in Rajasthan on Saturday, demanding 5 per cent reservation in government employment.

JAIPUR: Gujjars stepped up their agitation to demand 5 per cent reservation in government employment in Rajasthan on Saturday, the sixth day, blocking another rail track in Bhilwara district, clashing with security forces at several places and disrupting traffic on many roads.

The operation of at least eight trains between Ajmer and Indore was affected, with the agitators blocking the track at a level crossing near Bhilwara. The Gujjars have already occupied the Delhi-Mumbai rail line at Pilukapura and the Delhi-Jaipur track near Bandikui.

Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla, leading the agitators at Pilukapura, has raised a new demand: he wants the State government to put the new recruitment process on hold and collect data to prove the community's backwardness to support its claim for the quota, as per a recent order of the Rajasthan High Court.

Earlier this week, the High Court suspended the operation of an Act of 2008 providing Gujjars and other nomadic tribes with reservation, treating them as a special backward class, and directed the State government to collect the data on the Gujjars within a year.

A delegation of Gujjar leaders are said to have met a three-member Ministerial committee, which the State government formed on Friday night. But the outcome of the talks was unclear. A separate delegation of Gujjar social activists, lawyers and former MLAs met Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot at his residence here on Saturday and backed his efforts to end the stalemate.

Mr. Gehlot said after the meeting that he had sent three senior officers to Bayana to hold talks with Col. Bainsla and his supporters. However, the officers did not get a positive response from the Gujjars, who stayed put in the biting cold on the rail track at the Pilukapura-Chhonkra level crossing.

The officers were camping at a government school at Bayana, trying to assess the situation till in the evening on Saturday. Col. Bainsla's aide Roop Singh said that “nothing less than 5 per cent quota” would satisfy the community.

Mr. Singh also warned that Gujjars would “very soon take a decision to block the Jaipur-Delhi and Jaipur-Agra National Highways.” Elsewhere in the State, the Gujjars clashed with security personnel while trying to block roads in Karauli, Bharatpur, Sawai Madhopur, Dausa, Kota and Bundi districts. Vehicular movement was disrupted for several hours on many roads, and Gujjar youths damaged road-signs and public property.

Mr. Gehlot once again appealed to the Gujjar leaders to call off the agitation and accept the government's offer of dialogue to “explore an amicable way out.”

After a review meeting, he told reporters that the State government would create 4 per cent notional posts for the special backward class and retain them separately in the ongoing recruitment process. “Besides, the Gujjars would continue to get one per cent quota in the 50-per cent ceiling as well as the benefit in the 21 per cent reserved for the Other Backward Classes.”

In an unusually harsh attack on Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, Mr. Gehlot said BJP president Nitin Gadkari and general secretary Vasundhara Raje were “hatching a conspiracy” to provoke the Gujjars and create a confrontation. “We will not allow the BJP to succeed in its nefarious designs,” he said.

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