Chhattisgarh Assembly election: Tribal body holds rally on World Tribal Day

Former Union minister and president of Sarva Adivasi Samaj Chhattisgarh Arvind Neetam announced that his party will contest the Assembly elections from Scheduled Tribes (STs) reserved seats

Ahead of the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections, the Sarva Adivasi Samaj Chhattisgarh took out an aakrosh (anger) rally on Wednesday in Raipur to raise the issues of "jal, jungle, and zameen" (water, forest, and land).

Set to contest polls for the first time, the tribal body said that the members of the community are being exploited.

Former Union minister and president of Sarva Adivasi Samaj Chhattisgarh Arvind Neetam announced that his party would contest the Assembly elections from Scheduled Tribes (STs) reserved seats and general constituencies which have significant ST, Scheduled Castes (SC), and Other Backward Classes (OBC) populations.

On World Tribal Day (August 9), around 2,000 people participated in the rally that started from the B S Juneja Indoor Stadium, shouting slogans about tribal issues, which included "Modi sarkar wake up", "stop attacks on tribals", and "stop attacks on Constitution".

The rally was followed by a public meeting where tribal leaders, led by Neetam, urged the tribal community to unite and fight to preserve their identity and protect 'jal, jungle, and zameen (water, forest, and land).

The participants of the rally came back to the indoor stadium where leaders discussed issues such as weakening the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) or the PESA Act, 1996; displacement of 600 villages during militia Salwa Judum movement in Bastar; reservation; and terming villagers as Naxals and killing them.

Neetam said, "In 1991, the Congress brought in the liberalisation policy and we had discussed that liberalisation is a calamity and that robbers will come into tribal areas and they, along with the government, will loot their resources. Today, we are seeing this happening in Chhattisgarh. They are tearing apart the law and hence the PESA Act was made to stop and monitor these robbers."

He added that the law had a provision under which the tribal community could have a say in "jal, jungle, and zameen," but the government took away these rights last year.

"Only a few like me who made this law are alive and seeing it being torn apart saddens me. Not even a single elected representative is raising this issue," he added.

He further said, "Pradesh Congress Committee president Deepak Baij criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for displaced villagers but how many villagers have the Congress rehabilitated in the last four years?"