HYDERABAD: About one lakh members of the Lambada community in Telangana will be raising a demand for increase in the reservation for Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the state from 6 per cent to 12 per cent at ‘Lambadila Mahagarjana’ to be held at Saroornagar Stadium in the city on Wednesday.
The meeting comes in the backdrop of recent protests by other members of ST community (Adivasis) across the state by obstructing Lambada government officials from performing their duties and holding a meeting in Hyderabad, demanding that Lambadas be not considered as part of the STs.
Speaking to mediapersons on Tuesday, Amar Singh Tilawat, national working president of All India Banjara Seva Sangh, said that CM K Chandrasekhar Rao failed to deliver on his promise of 12 pc reservation in education and employment and three acres of land to all Dalits in the state.
Tilawat said that there were no legal hurdles in increasing the quota for STs to 12 pc and it could have been done if the CM was willing for it. Indirectly countering the arguments of Adivasis, he said that Lambadas had not been deriving benefits from the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) ever since they were declared as STs in the then united state of Andhra Pradesh.“It is nothing but belittling the role played by tribals in the struggle for statehood of Telangana,” Tilawat said.