A total of 17 people have died so far in police firing and violence at different places.
The third round of talks between Gujjars and the Rajasthan government over the issue of reservation in government jobs failed on Saturday evening with the community's leader Kirori Singh Bainsla saying that the stir will continue till its demands were met.
The BJP has emerged the second largest party by winning 29 constituencies in the maiden assembly polls post abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, improving its all-time high tally of 25 seats recorded in 2014 elections.
The Gujjar Mahapadav (sit-in), which started on Sunday for reservation demand at Penchla modh in Rajasthan's Karuali district entered fifth day on Thursday.
Observing that it is the common man who is hit by violent stirs, the Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to stay the Rajasthan high court's contempt notices against the state's erstwhile chief secretary and police chief for their alleged failure to curb the Gujjars' violence in 2007.
"This fight is against the hatred that the BJP and RSS are spreading throughout the country. They have tried to create conflicts between Hindus and Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, and Hindus and Christians just to hold onto power. But they are failing and their strategy is not working," he said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday slammed the government on the issue of the cartoon of Dalit icon B R Ambedkar in school text books and accused the Congress of "insulting" Gujjar, Jat, Sikh and Jain communities.
Claiming forward movement in their parleys, the Gujjar leadership and the Rajasthan government on Tuesday held further talks to end the 26-day-old agitation for ST status.
Two Bahujan Samaj Party legislators, Suresh Meena and Murari Meena, and one Congress legislator Ramnarayan Meena tendered their resignations to the community leaders and not to the assembly Speaker on Saturday night.
Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla, spearheading the community's agitation for ST status, has conveyed his readiness to resume the talks on Wednesday, officials in the office of Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje said late Tuesday evening. Rajasthan government promptly welcomed the development.
Accusing Raje of lacking 'courage of conviction', Bainsla said "it is the responsibility of the head of an elected government to come and listen to the grievances of the people." Contesting Raje's claim that she tried to contact him on Sunday from Bayana, the Gujjar leader said "no efforts were made from the CM's side to contact me".
Fuel rationing was on Friday imposed in Karwadi and Bayana by the district authorities in a bid to check the movement of Gujjar protesters as their agitation entered the eighth day.
Gujjars in Rajasthan had demanded to be shifted to the ST category from the Other Backward Caste category.
The proceedings of a local court hearing the bail application of Noida double murder case accused Rajesh Talwar on Wednesday were postponed for an hour after some lawyers agitating on the Gujjar issue entered the court room and shouted slogans. Talwar, now in judicial remand, was brought to the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate A K Singh from Dasna Jail in Ghaziabad on Tuesday morning for the hearing of his bail plea and an application filed by police for seeking his
The letter was brought to Bainsla by a Gujjar team, which was flown from Jaipur by a state government helicopter. The team, which includes Delhi Nationalist Congress Party legislator Ramvir Singh Bidhuri and Haryana legislator Sukhbir Singh Jaunpuria, returned to the state capital on Saturday evening carrying the views of the community leadership.
So far 264 cases have been registered based on FIRs against protestors who indulged in violence and arson.
The Gujjars, who are agitating for Scheduled Tribe status in Rajasthan, today decided to intensify their stir and gave a call for a 'bandh' (shutdown) in Delhi tomorrow, threatening to seal all entry points to the capital
The I S Israni committee report submitted before the high court has endorsed the recommendations of Justice Chopra Committee, which had recommended five per cent reservation for the community in 2007 in government employment and admission to educational institutions.
A day-long bandh called by Gujjars in support of their demand for five per cent reservation in government jobs hit vehicular traffic in Dausa district even as Gadia Luhar community joined the stir which entered the fifth day on Friday.
The Rajasthan High Court on Thursday directed agitating Gujjar leaders to ensure that the statewide stir proposed by them from tomorrow remains peaceful and there is no violence.
The pradhan gave correct information about the whereabouts of Gujjar, which enabled the STF team to track him.
The tribal communities, asserting their rights under the Forest Rights Act, are now planning to gather in Delhi to demand "justice" for their livelihoods and traditions that are closely linked to the forests.
The Rajasthan High Court on Tuesday issued a contempt notice to Gujjar leader Kirori Singh Bainsla for allegedly violating its order restraining the community leadership from taking law into their hands. Justice Preme Shankar Asopa directed Bainsla to appear before the court on May 30 on a petition by the state government accusing him of violating the court's order of September 10, 2007.
The word Gujjar has become untouchable for the Bharatiya Janata Party to such an extent that the party leaders shy away from mentioning the word itself, leave alone the question of saying something on it.
At least 15 people, including a policeman, were on Friday killed in police firing and clashes between members of Gujjar community demanding Scheduled Caste status for them and cops at Bayana in Rajasthan's Bharatpur district, after which the Army was deployed in the area.
The police has registered a case against suspended Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Prahalad Gunjal and five others for violating prohibitory orders in Kota district, officials said on Wednesday.
Bainsala, who led the state-wide agitation which acquired a caste-war colour, however said he had 'trust' in Chief Minister Vasundhare Raje despite police registering cases against agitators.
Charges have also been filed under sections 147, 148, 141, 334, 353, 181, 158, and 283.
The state government wanted to sort out the matter but due to Friday's clash in Lalsot between Gujjars and Meenas, in which four persons were killed, the meeting was delayed.
Modi began his nearly 45-minute speech by welcoming the people who attended the rally in the Kashmiri language. "This time, the (assembly) election will decide the future of Jammu and Kashmir, which has remained the target of foreign powers since Independence," he told the gathering.
'The situation in Nuh could have easily returned to normalcy if the trader class wished so, but they didn't.'
It suffered losses mainly due to passenger ticket refunds and disruptions in freight services besides damage to railway tracks, a senior railways ministry official said. While Delhi-Mumbai trunk route was the worst affected, Northern Railway and Western Railway suffered maximum losses due to the Gujjar agitation on Scheduled Tribe status, Railway statistics over the past 20 days indicate.
Eleven days after she was shot dead in a Gurugram hotel, the body of ex-model Divya Pahuja was recovered from a canal in Haryana's Fatehabad district on Saturday, police said.
With the Gujjar stir for ST status showing no sign of abating, the Army erected barbed wire fencings on village roads leading to the agitation hotbed here as the security top brass met to find fresh ways to break the fortnight-long deadlock.
The Rajasthan government on Tuesday decided to forward the report of the Justice Jasraj Chopra Committee to the Centre. The committee had looked into the demands of the Gujjar community in the state, who want to be shifted to the Scheduled Caste category from the Other Backward Caste.
BJP state president Dr Mahesh Sharma said that inclusion of any new community in the ST list was neither a state subject nor was it possible for any single party to implement it on its own.
Suspending Attar Singh Bhadana and Prahalad Gunjal, state BJP president Mahesh Sharma asked the duo to file their reply to the show cause notice-cum-suspension order within seven days, a party spokesman said.
A three-member high-power committee headed by a retired High Court judge to examine the community's demand for ST status.
Former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir Ghulam Nabi Azad will contest the Lok Sabha elections from Anantnag -Rajouri constituency, his party Democratic Progressive Azad Party (DPAP) said.
On the Opposition's poll promise of statehood restoration, Shah said, "I want to ask Farooq Abdullah and Rahul Gandhi, who is going to restore the statehood. You cannot give it back. Why are you misleading the public?"
