Congress team to report Sonia on Gujjar agitation

New Delhi, May 28 (UNI) A high-level Congress fact-finding team, led by AICC General Secretary Mukul Wasnik, will tonight visit Rajasthan, where about 40 people belonging to the Gujjar community were killed in violence and police firing.

The team would also have AICC Coordinator for Rajasthan Virendra Singh, Rajasthan PCC Chief and the CLP leader.

It has been asked to submit its report to Congress President Sonia Gandhi.

AICC Spokesperson Jayanti Natarajan told mediapersons that the team would visit different areas to study the police atrocities on unprovoked mobs of Gujjars who had been demanding inclusion of their community in the list of Scheduled Tribes.

The team would also visit the families of victims of police firing.

Ms Natarajan appealed to Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje to bring the situation under control.

Accusing the BJP government of having ''failed'' to manage the situation, she criticised the central leadership of the BJP for shifting the venue of its National Executive meeting to Delhi from Jaipur.

Asked if the Congress supported the demands of the Gujjars, Ms Natarajan said it was Ms Raje who had promised to include the Gujjars in the ST list before the 2003 state assembly elections.

Asked if the Congress-led government at the Centre was in favour of the Gujjar demand, she said there was a constitutional process for inclusion and exclusion of SCs and STs. The state government should first make a recommendation and then the Centre would examine the proposal within the existing parameters. "The Centre can offer only such assistance as is requested by the state." UNI SH HS VC1820