Rahul accuses BJP of making Adivasis homeless
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday accused the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of taking away “jal, jungle, and zamin” (water, forests, and land) from tribal people and transferring them to two corporate entities, making the Adivasis homeless.
He criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for granting a loan waiver of ₹16 lakh crore to 22 industrialists while no relief has been provided for tribal people, Dalits, and the poor. The amount was equivalent to the outlay for MGNREGS (rural employment scheme) for 24 years, as in one year, ₹65,000 crore is spent on the scheme, he said.
Speaking in the tribal
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra, in the tribal-dominated Nandurbar.
dominated Nandurbar district as his Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra entered Maharashtra in its last leg, the Wayanad MP noted that tribal people constituted 8% of the country’s population and vowed that the Congress would ensure proportionate representation.
“Our government will
carry out a caste census and an economic and financial survey, and also strengthen the Forest Rights Act (FRA) that was ‘weakened’ under the BJP regime,” he said.
The Congress leader pledged that his party’s government would include villages with over 50% tribal population in the Sixth
Schedule of the Constitution, preventing local decisions without the consent of tribal communities.
“You (tribal people) are the real owners of the country. Once we come to power, the Congress will carry out a caste census, followed by an economic and financial survey across the country. It will be a revolutionary step. We will have the exact data of each caste and its representation in the population,” he said, promising to introduce legislation to provide guaranteed Minimum Support Price (MSP) for farm and forest produce.
In Delhi, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, accompanied by general secretary (organisation) K.C. Venugopal and other senior leaders, announced six guarantees for Adivasis: a national mission for the effective implementation of the Forest Rights Act under Sushashan; undoing of the amendments to FRA and Land Acquisition Act (LAA) by the Narendra Modi government; enacting State laws in conformity with the Central Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA) to enable ‘village government’ and ‘autonomous district government’.
Asked if the party’s focus on tribals was part of a course correction after its loss in the tribal belt of Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, Mr. Kharge told The Hindu that the Congress wanted to improve the economic status of tribals by “mainstreaming” them through education and empowerment.
“We don’t do fake things but do real development,” Mr. Kharge said.