Sudi community demands EBC status, greater political representation

Patna: Ahead of assembly elections, people from Sudi community on Sunday demanded that their caste be included in the extremely backward classes (EBCs) bloc and they be also given greater political representation.Sudi is currently under the backward class (BC).People of Sudi community and the lawmakers from the caste made this demand while participating in ‘Sudi Adhikar' mahasammelan at the Bapu Sabhagar here.Ramchandra Purbey, Ram Prakash Mahto, Sameer Kumar Mahaseth and Kedar Prasad from the RJD, Arun Shankar Prasad and a few others from the BJP, and a former JMM MLA from Godda in Jharkhand Suraj Mandal were also present at the programme.They said that in 1990, there were 12 MLAs from the ‘vaishya (trader)' caste group, including nine of the Sudi caste, and Mandal himself used to be the leader of the JMM legislature party. However, their figures began to fall sharply afterwards.The speakers on the occasion insisted that the inclusion of their caste in the EBC category would help aspirants from among them in getting elected to the single seats in the three-tier Panchayati Raj Institution (PRI) bodies, zila parishads, as well as in the urban local bodies.They also pointed out that people of their caste were affected by two factors. "The market reforms and online marketing and home delivery of goods have hit our traditional business practices. To add to it, our political representation in the state assembly and legislative council has also fallen drastically over the last three decades," former JD(U) MLA Amarnath Gami from Hayaghat in Darbhanga district said."In the past, people of the trader caste had representation in significant numbers, and those belonging to the Sudi caste among them used to be greater. Today, there are only three lawmakers from the Sudi caste, two in the state assembly and one in the legislative council," BJP MLA Arun Shankar Prasad from Khajauli in Madhubani district said.Speakers said that traditionally the ‘vaishya (trader)' caste included people of Sudi, Teli, Kanu and Kalwar groups, and all were put in the BC category. However, in 2015, the Teli, Kanu and Tamoli were split from it and put in the EBC category under the Nitish Kumar govt."No one govt should be blamed for leaving out the Sudi caste from inclusion in the EBC group. We will have to make our sustained collective struggle for getting our caste included in the EBC list," Prasad said.