NCP demands Raj dismissal, ST status for Gujjars

New Delhi, May 30: Demanding that the Rajasthan government be dismissed in view of the ''mishandling'' of the Gujjar agitation, the Delhi Nationalist Congress Party today said the the community should be given ST status on the lines of Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

Addressing mediapersons here, Delhi NCP president Ramvir Singh Bidhuri said despite making it a poll promise, the Rajasthan government had refused to consider the issue of granting Scheduled Tribes status to Gujjars.

''Instead, the government resorted to brutal means of suppressing the peaceful agitation of the people, because of which the government should be dismissed.'' The Party would hold a protest against the killings on Sunday and submit a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking ST status for Gujjars in Rajasthan just as they have been given in Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, he said.

''We will also ask the Congress government at the Centre to direct the Rajasthan government to fulfil its poll promise and make arrangements to notify on the issue as it was at the helm of affairs in Delhi.'' Informing that 137 of 368 villages in Delhi were inhabited by Gujjars, besides 27 corporators in MCD and five MLAs in Delhi Assembly belonged to the community, Mr Bidhuri said the sentiments of lakhs of people could not be trampled upon by brute power.

UNI