Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Deputy Chief Minister Muzaffar Hussain Beig seems to have sparked a row over ST quotas with Gujjar and Bakerwal nomads today demanding his resignation for trying to "dilute" their tribal character.

"We demand Beig's resignation as he is trying to dilute the tribal characteristics of nomads to accommodate his own community in the ST category," JK Gujjar and Bakerwal Joint Forum president Haji Shamsher Ali Boken said in a statement. The Forum also urged the nomadic community to boycott the PDP minister's public meetings in protest.

Beig had made a strong plea at a function in Jammu last week for inclusion of Pahari-speaking people in the Scheduled Tribe category for quotas in government jobs and educational institutions. Boken claimed Paharis were not a backward class and, therefore, not entitled to St status. "There is no provision to enlist a community as ST on the basis of its language or location," he said adding Gujjars and Bakerwals were nomadic and accorded ST status in 1991.

The term "Pahari or Pahari-speaking people" had never been defined by the state or Central government and it was "not defined in any works of history, anthropology, the census or even mentioned in revenue records", he argued. He accused Beig of trying to "grab the legitimate rights and constitutional safeguards" of the tribals and that he was "instrumental" in passing a resolution in the assembly in 2006 for granting ST status to Pahari-speaking people.

Alleging that the Congress-PDP government had broken its promises to the community, the Forum said it would have to "think about an alternate party in the ensuing elections".

Source : PTI