Months ahead of the Himachal Pradesh assembly elections, the BJP has intensified its efforts to woo various key communities in the state. As part of this move, a delegation led by chief minister Jai Ram Thakur met union home minister Amit Shah and raised the issue of according tribal status to the Hatti community.
Thakur later said Shah has assured that very soon positive efforts will be made regarding the issue.
The argument
The chief minister pointed out that the Hatti community mostly lives in the Trans-Giri area. There is social, cultural as well as geographical similarity between the Hatti community of the Trans-Giri region of Himachal Pradesh and the Jaunsar community of the Jaunsar-Bawar area of Uttarakhand, he said.
The Jaunsar-Bawar region has got the status of a tribal region in 1968 itself, Thakur said.
The demand to declare Giripar (Trans-Giri) a tribal area and Hatti as a Scheduled Tribe (ST) has, however, been pending.
The issue was also mentioned in the manifesto of the 2009 Lok Sabha elections of the BJP, the CM said. In 2014, BJP leaders made promises to accord tribal status to the Hatti community.
Why the delay?
Jai Ram Thakur said that there were many glitches in sending the details to the Registrar General of India. “However, these have been removed now,” he added.
Brushing aside apprehensions that the meeting with the union home minister ahead of assembly polls may be termed “political”, Thakur said, “We have been working for this demand for a long time.”
There are a total of 154 panchayats in the Trans-Giri area. According to the 2011 census, the population of the Hatti community is estimated to be about three lakhs.
Fulfilling the demand will have a direct impact on the Shillai, Paonta Sahib, Renuka, and Pachhad assembly constituencies. Apart from these, the Hatti community has a significant presence in the Nahan, Solan, Shimla, Shimla Rural, and Choupal seats.
The BJP had won 44 of the total 68 Himachal assembly segments in the 2017 polls. Elections in the state are due by the end of this year.
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