Panaji: Goa's Scheduled Tribe quota is still stuck at the door of the courts, and Chief Minister Pramod Sawant is now looking to the top court.
Sawant said on Friday that the state government is examining all legal options, including approaching the Supreme Court, to make ST reservation in the Goa Legislative Assembly a reality before the 2027 Assembly elections. The government, he said, is also studying alternative legal routes to get past the present hurdles.
He said he had raised the matter personally with Union Home Minister Amit Shah at a meeting on Thursday.
"We are making every possible effort to ensure ST reservation for the 2027 Assembly elections," Sawant said.
The chief minister did not spell out which court order or which provision of law stood in the way, or what the alternative route being studied would look like.
What the statement does make clear is the clock he is working against. Goa votes along with Manipur, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh in early 2027, according to the election calendar for the period, and any change to the composition of the 40-member House has to be in place well before the notification.
Reservation in the Assembly would mean redrawing which seats are reserved and which are general, a change that affects every party's ticket arithmetic.
Sawant's remarks came on a day when the state's political attention is already on the run-up to the poll. He offered no timeline, no legal opinion in hand and no assurance beyond the effort itself.
The Home Ministry has not commented on what was discussed at Thursday's meeting.
For now the file sits where it has sat for a while, between the state's intention and a court's permission.