http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kanpur/Malasa-villagers-hail-inclusion-in-gen-category/articleshow/6312057.cms
Malasa villagers hail inclusion in gen category Faiz Rahman Siddiqui, TNN, Aug 14, 2010, 10.21pm IST KANPUR: Locals of Malasa in Ramabai Nagar have all the more reasons to rejoice this Independence Day. Reason being the inclusion of the much controversial Malasa seat in the general category. Celebrations started in the thakur-dominated Malasa village- 60-km from Kanpur- soon after the declaration of the seat under the general category. As the news spread, the villagers, mostly people from the upper-caste, started distributing sweets in the neighbourhood. The other castes also shared their enthusiasm. "We are really happy that finally the seat has been declared as general. It is a great news for us, as now we can elect our representative," said Sunder Kureel, a dalit. He said for the past five year, notification for elections was issued on seven occasions but no one had come forward to file nomination papers. Thus, he hoped the Malasa village would now be able to do so in the coming panchayat elections, to be held in September. Birju, another villager, said for the past couple of days, the village was hogging the limelight and for all the right reasons. Earlier, the Malasa seat was reserved for women. The last panchayat election was held in 2000. In August 2005, it was declared as reserved for the scheduled castes. After that, every effort to elect a gram pradhan and 15 members of the panchayat failed. In 2008, when two dalits had come forward to file their nominations, their candidature had been rejected. No one, including their own caste, had come forward to propose and second their candidature, as required for filing the nomination papers. Chandrika Prasad, one of the contestants who had filed his nomination papers, claimed: "We were being pressurised by the dominant thakurs not to file nomination papers." Bholey Singh, an upper-caste villager, said they had never stopped the Dalits from filing nominations. "They themselves did not come forward to contest election," he claimed. However, Gokul Das, another dalit, hailed the decision. "It is a right move. The Election Commission has finally declared it as a general seat. The seat, which was declared as reserved for SC category, constitutes a general population of 2,398, backward class- 514 and schedule tribes- 121, out of the total 3,033 population in the village. There are 1,400 voters, out of which nearly 1,250 votes are of thakurs and the remaining four per cent are of dalits." District magistrateSaroj Kumar Tiwari told TOI: "Our people carried out a survey of all the 613 gram pradhan seats of the district and, thereafter, the category of each seat was finalised. Two major criteria, caste-wise population in the descending order and rotational system of reservation, were taken into consideration before assigning the categories." He added: "Any objections over a gram pradhan seat may be registered with the sub-divisional magistrate incharge of the tehsil. The last date for submitting the objections is August 17. The objections will be evaluated and sorted out on August 20, after which they will be sent to the State Election Commission for final publication."