Some progressive communities didn’t allow birth of girl child: Paatil

Paatil, who also laid the foundation stone for a students’ hostel to come up in Pavi Jetpur taluka of the district, lauded the tribal community for “never having discriminated” between sons and daughters. He said, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Beti Bachao campaign began in Haryana and had to be taken all over the entire country to send the message across. But we can proudly say that in the tribal belt of Gujarat, we have not needed to launch this campaign at all. There are 107 girls for every 100 boys as per the ratio… there is no discrimination between sons and daughters in tribal communities.”

Without naming any community, he added, “If you have to take forward your community and society, it is essential to have a commensurate ratio of males and females but some communities that consider themselves progressive and prosperous have resorted to PNDT tests and not allowed the girl child to be born… But you tribals have never done this and so we appreciate you.”

Paatil took a potshot at the Congress, stating that the party “did not consider tribal leaders capable” of handling important portfolios. Narrating the life struggle of President Droupadi Murmu, Paatil said, “The Congress never thought of making a tribal the President of the country. It was Narendra Modi who wanted to honour the tribal communities… and he made a tribal woman the President… During the Congress rule, it was a tradition that tribal leaders only got forest tribal affairs portfolios, then it also took away the forest portfolio.”

“But the BJP believes that tribal leaders can also handle important portfolios. We had given Gandevi MLA Naresh Patel the important portfolio of food and civil supply and consumer protection and Kuber Dindor (who was present on the dias) holds the very important portfolio of education… Being a tribal leader, he has been able to efficiently handle the portfolio… Even during the teachers’ protests, Dindor was able to resolve the issue…”.

Paatil further said that the government is “looking at new innovations and technologies” to ensure that the benefits of government schemes in different sectors reach the people. “The Gujarat BJP has launched an app and ensured at all sarpanches have downloaded it… This app has details of the schemes and if anyone from the village wants to avail of the benefits, they can do so by approaching the sarpanch through the app and WhatsApp…”.

Speaking on the sides of the event after he joined the BJP with Congress district panchayat member Mahesh Bhil and several supporters, Dhiru Bhil said: “Is this development that there was no model school in this taluka for so many years? I discussed this matter with my supporters and they asked me this question too… Therefore, I thought it was the right step to join the party that is working for development, which will be seen on the ground and reach the people as it ought to.”