Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:
MLC Satish Chavan on Saturday made a demand with the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to give the benefit of reservation in the Scheduled Tribe (ST) category to the Banjara (Laman) community in Marathwada as per the Hyderabad State Gazetteer 1920.
In the memorandum submitted to the CM, he stated that Marathwada was a part of the Nizam-ruled Hyderabad State until 1948. “It has been found that the Lambada/Banjara (Sugli) community was clearly mentioned as an ST in the Hyderabad Gazetteer 1920 of that time. The community was residing in large numbers in the region.
After Marathwada joined Maharashtra in 1956, this community was included in the OBC/NTC category,” he said. MLC Chavan said that the Banjara community was given the status of a Scheduled Tribe (ST) in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, on the basis of the same gazette.