In Chhattisgarh, Cong veteran Arvind Netam floats tribal party, eyes ‘third front’ to fight Assembly polls

In February this year, the Congress had even issued a show-cause notice to him for alleged anti-party activities. The 80-year-old Netam says he has already sent his reply to the party and has been waiting for its response.

Netam, who represented the North Bastar Lok Sabha constituency five times from 1971 to 1996, had been a minister of state (MoS) in the governments of Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and of P V Narasimha Rao in the 1990s.

After proposing a new tribal party, Netam told The Indian Express, “We want to bring an awakening in Chhattisgarh. Whether we win or lose, we want to send a message to Congress and the BJP that they cannot take the tribal community lightly any more. We may or may not win but one of them will lose because of us. One of the biggest issues tribals face is of Jal, Jungle and Zameen (Water, Forest and Land).”

He also said, “The Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 is not being implemented in true sense. The rules of the law say that we will only take advice from Gram Sabha when law says their consent is required. The law was made to empower the tribals to protect their lands but it is being turned useless. We will strengthen this law and implement it in its true sense. Another major issue is of reservation. We are guaranteed reservation through the Constitution but for over a decade the BJP and Congress did not make a separate law for us.”

Netam said the Chhattisgarh Sarva Adivasi Samaj has already been in talks for an alliance for the Assembly polls, slated for November this year, with smaller parties like the CPI(M) and CPI, maintaining that they were looking

to create a third front in a state whose politics has traditionally been a bipolar affair involving the two national parties, the Congress and the BJP.

When asked whether it is not too late for him to float his party, Netam said, “It is not true. We tried to float a party for the 2013 elections as well as the 2018 polls, but we wanted to get a strong support on the ground which we have this time.” Netam said. He added that they “gained confidence” following the Bhanuratappur Assembly seat bypoll in Kanker district in December last year in which the Chhattisgarh Sarva Adivasi Samaj backed an Indepndent candidate Akbar Ram Korram, a retired DIG from Jagdalpur.

Korram garnered a sizeable chunk of votes although the seat was easily won by Congress candidate Savitri Mandavi. The bypoll was necessitated due to the demise of sitting Congress MLA and Savitri’s husband, Manoj Mandavi, who was the Deputy Speaker in the Assembly.

“Korram got 16% votes despite announcing his candidature around 10 days before the election. He was supported by the Samaj. So we do have a strong support among tribal masses. We fought this election only because the BJP and Congress were ignoring our demands and this is exactly why we are for the first time turning our social movement into political movement,” said Vinod Nagavanshi, the Samaj state secretary.

Netam said during the bypoll the Samaj was not looking to score a win but to “send a strong message to both the national parties that tribals cannot be taken for granted”. “She (Savitri) got 60% per cent votes. I got 16% votes and BJP candidate got 27-28% votes,” said Korram.

Netam has had a long history of association and split with the Congress over the last several decades, leaving it twice to join other parties, including the BSP, BJP and NCP, before returning back to the grand old party during this period.

Ahead of the 2018 Assembly polls, he returned to the Congress because “Rahul Gandhi contacted me”, Netam said. In 2020, he had a rift with Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel over the proposal to resume the stalled Bodhghat hydel project in the Maoist-affected Dantewada region.