Rahul plays tribal card in Kandhamal

In a bid to woo the tribal community who constitute a majority of the population in Kandhamal district, the Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday played the tribal card here claiming that the Congress was the only party which worked for the socio-economic development of the tribals and dalits in the country.

Addressing an election rally here, he said, “The Congress led UPA government at the Centre has introduced a historic Bill for the tribals which would enable them to get back their valuable land, which has been taken away from them without any compensation.”

This assumes significance as over 50 per cent of the total electorate (4.34 lakh) in three Assembly constituencies of the district- Phulabani, Udayagiri and Baliguda were tribals. It may be noted that these three Assembly constituencies are reserved for the Scheduled Tribes.

During the past five years, the UPA government at the Centre has fulfilled almost all the promises which it made before the elections, claimed Gandhi.

He also accused the erstwhile BJP-led NDA rule of neglecting the interests of the tribal people of the country and predicted an impressive show by the UPA in the ensuing Lok Sabha polls. The Congress leader appealed to the people to vote for his party in the upcoming elections.

He, however, did not touch on the issue of the Kandhamal riots which broke out on August 23 last year.

Highlighting the achievements of the Congress led UPA government, he said, “The UPA government has launched the world’s biggest employment guarantee programme according to which every family in the rural areas is getting at least 100 days of employment. Moreover, the UPA government made a budgetary provision was made of Rs 60,000 crore for waiver of farm loans.”

Training his guns on the Naveen Patnaik led government in Orissa, he said that the Orissa government had failed to fulfill the aspirations of the people and the state lagged behind on all fronts of development during the BJD-BJP collation rule.