Dimapur: The 5 Tribes Committee of Review of Reservation Policy (CoRRP) on Thursday expressed displeasure over the Nagaland Cabinet’s decision on its demands made on Wednesday.
The committee said it will have a joint sitting with the five apex tribal bodies to decide the next course of action.
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CoRRP convenor Tesinlo Semy and member secretary G.K. Zhimomi, in a release, said the August 6 state cabinet meeting chose to ignore the committee’s core demands and instead went ahead with the composition of the Reservation Review Commission, which includes civil society organisations such as the Eastern Nagaland Peoples’ Organisation, Central Nagaland Tribes Council, and Tenyimi Union Nagaland.
It added that the outcome of the cabinet meeting on the backward tribe reservation issue was a repetition of the decision made during the June 12 meeting.
On June 12, the state cabinet had decided in principle to constitute a commission to examine all aspects of the reservation policy in government employment.
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The committee said the “partisan attitude” of government spokesperson K.G. Kenye on Wednesday, justifying 48 years of an indefinite reservation policy, presenting what it called “wild, imaginary” employment figures, and linking the Reservation Review Commission’s outcome with the next census, only added insult to its movement.
The committee has demanded that the government either scrap the 48-year-old indefinite job quotas for seven backward tribes in Nagaland, introduced in 1977 for an initial period of 10 years, or reserve the remaining unreserved quota exclusively for the five tribes: Sumi, Ao, Lotha, Angami, and Rengma.
The CoRRP had put its proposed third-phase agitation on hold after a meeting with Chief Secretary Sentiyanger Imchen in Kohima on August 4.
Imchen had told the committee that the state cabinet would take a final call on its core demands, including the framing of terms of reference and the composition of a commission to look into the demands, within the next fortnight, in its sitting on August 6.