RAIPUR: Rahul Gandhi on Saturday renewed his pledge to offer free education to students from KG to post-graduation in all government-owned educational institutions in Chhattisgarh.
He promised that if Congress retains power in the state, tendu patta collectors, who are mostly from tribal communities, will get Rs 4,000 per standard sac besides Rs 10 hike in every minor forest produce (MFP). The tendu leaves are cited as green gold and are used to wrap tobacco beedis. The annual production of tendu leaves is around 1.70 million standard sac in the state.
The former Congress chief addressed two separate public rallies at tribal-dominated Bhanupratapur and Kondagaon in Bastar zone, where the first phase of polling is due on November 7. Lashing out at the BJP-led Centre for “avoiding” caste survey, he said such a census will be done in Chhattisgarh and also in Delhi (Centre) if Congress came to power.
“All BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, talk a lot about the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) but remain scared of caste-based census because the OBCs are deprived of what they deserve. The OBCs constitute over 50% of the population and are now being misled,” said Rahul. On Scheduled Tribes (ST), the Congress leader compared the terminology while differentiating the word ‘vanvasi’ that BJP cites for tribals from ‘adivasi’ as referred by Congress for the tribes. There are 29 reserved ST seats in the 90-member state assembly.
“By calling them vanvasi, the BJP is not just insulting tribal communities but the expression is also an attack on their culture, history and rights. Adivasi signifies the original inhabitants of this country who have rights over Jal, Jungle, Zameen. For BJP the tribals are the ones who stay in forest and they don’t speak about their rights,” he stated.
Wooing the tribals, Rahul said Congress brought various welfare schemes for them. These included Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, anti-poverty employment generation scheme MGNREGA, Forest Rights Act and other tribal bills. He said that no one howsoever high can take away the land of tribals without mandatory permission of the gram sabha.