india

Updated: May 07, 2019 23:14 IST

“Congress will protect the ‘jal, jungle, zameen’ (water, forest and land) of tribals,” party president Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday at a rally in Chaibasa in Singhbhum, which goes to polls on May 12.

Gandhi accused Narendra Modi of snatching the tribal lands for industrialists, even as he underlined how the Congress enacted several laws to protect the interests, land and culture of tribal populations.

On Tuesday, addressing his second rally in the state, Gandhi said that in the last assembly elections in 2014, the prime minister had promised not to commit injustice against tribal people, but being voted into power, the BJP government sought to amend the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act and Chhota Nagpur Tenancy Act.

The two British-era laws protect the ownership of tribal persons over their land and forest wealth, and cover North and South Chhotanagpur administrative divisions, and the Santhal Pargana division.

However, it was the Congress and other opposition parties that prevented amendments to these acts to protect the tribals, Gandhi added.

“Soon after acquiring power in Chhattisgarh, the Congress government took back a piece of land given to Tata group of companies by the (earlier) BJP government in Bastar and returned to the tribals,” Gandhi said. Top leaders of allies Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha and Rastriya Janata Dal also addressed the public.

“Rahul Gandhi hardly knows anything about Jharkhand. Several murky land deals were executed during the rein of Congress-backed Madhu Koda and Hemant Soren. Not a single case of corruption in land deal could be found during the past five years of BJP rule in the state,” said Dindayal Barnwal, Jharkhand BJP spokesperson.