The Vice-President of India’s opposition Congress party, Rahul Gandhi, on Monday (June 15) met villagers – affected by mining – in eastern Chhattisgarh state.
He attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi- led federal government and the state government for serving the interests of the corporate companies while paying scant regard to the problems of the common people.
Gandhi, who is on a two-day trip to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ruled state, said that the federal and state governments were robbing the tribals of their land and using it for mining.
Speaking to villagers at the mining belt of Korba, Gandhi said that the demands of the tribal population were falling on deaf ears and that he would fight for their rights and make sure their voices were being heard.
“What has been happening is that your voices are not reaching Delhi. The big shots do all the talking. Their grievances and demands are easily heard but your problems are not heard so easily.
In the altars of Delhi, a few sentences are written about Adivasis but a lot has been mentioned about the people who are in big and powerful positions. That is the reason I came here because the citizens of India need to understand that development must be for all,” said Gandhi.
Making a scathing attack at the Modi government while raking up the issue of land acquisition, he said that the villagers would not benefit from the “development model” of the BJP government in which, he claimed, only the industrialists benefitted. He said that due to the coal mining that is taking place in the village, the villagers would be displaced and denied of any compensation.
Referring to BJP-led National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) ordinance on land that removed clauses for taking consent of farmers before acquiring their land and modifying the provision to return acquired land if it was not utilised within five years, Gandhi said that Congress party has been opposing these amendments from the very beginning for the benefit of the farmers.
Refuting the claims made by Gandhi, spokesperson of BJP, Srichand Sundarani, said that Ganshi’s visit to the state was a desperate attempt to regain the lost confidence for his party among the people of Chhattisgarh.
“He (Rahul Gandhi) has never worried about the poor or the tribals (when the Congress was in power). He never spared a thought for the downtrodden living here. Now when the Congress is out power and has been rejected by the people, he has come to Chhattisgarh,” said Sundarani.
Sundarani added that Modi-government had ensured that the state and the country were developing at a fast pace, a far cry from the days of the reign of the Congress government.