Tribals struggling to get voices heard under BJP regime: Thakor

In a press conference held at Rajiv Gandhi Bhawan in Paldi of Ahmedabad, Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee (GPCC) president Thakor said, “On Friday, a massive protest rally is going to be held in Gandhinagar. For the past three months, the Adivasi community has been struggling to get their voices heard but the insensitive government led by Bharatiya Janata Party has not listened to them. There has been a conspiracy to finish off the Adivasi samaj from Gujarat. They don’t get ‘patta’ (registry) for their land and they are kept devoid of compensation because of lack of documents forcing them to become marginalized. There are no jobs for the Adivasi youth. Congress will be supporting the protest of the Tribal people.”

The Par-Tapi-Narmada river-linking project proposes to transfer river water from the surplus regions of the Western Ghats to the deficit regions of Saurashtra and Kutch.

There is a proposal to construct seven dams and six powerhouses and this will affect 61 villages in Nashik of Maharashtra, Valsad, Navsari and Dang in Gujarat.

On this occasion, Leader of Opposition Sukhram Rathva demanded that the state government release a white paper on the river-linking project regarding the exact number of people getting displaced and the compensation given to them.

AICC incharge of Gujarat Raghu Sharma slammed the “high-handedness” of the state government, claiming they were trying to suppress the voice of the Tribal people.

‘”There is anger among the Adivasi population because their voices have gone unheard. Now the state government further wants to suppress their voice by denying them police permission for protest in Gandhinagar. These draconian steps of BJP are not going to stop the people, who have made up their mind to remove this state government from power,” said Sharma.