Panel declares Ajit Jogi non-tribal; may lose his Assembly seat

Raipur, Aug 27: Former Chhattisgarh chief minister MLA Ajit Jogi may lose his tribal reserved Marwahi seat in the state assembly after a high-powered government committee held that he does not qualify as a Scheduled Tribe member.

The panel, headed by D D Singh, Secretary of the Tribal and Scheduled Caste Development Department, finalised the report last week, a senior government official said.

The committee concluded that Jogi failed to substantiate his claim of being member of the Kanwar community, a Scheduled Tribe, and hence all the caste certificates declaring him to be a tribal stand cancelled, the official said, quoting the report.

While the report is yet to be made public, Jogi, chief of Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J), termed its findings as "false", claiming that the report was prepared not by the "high-powered" committee but by a "Chief Minister BhupeshBaghel-empowered committee".