Bhopal, Aug 4 (IANS) The Congress continued to hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Madhya Pradesh government on Monday, reiterating the accusation of “snatching” away tribals’ land and weaken their Constitutional rights in forest areas during the ongoing Monsoon session of the Assembly, prompting Chief Minister Mohan Yadav and State Tribal Affairs Minister Vijay Shah to respond in the House.

The Congress had targeted the BJP on tribal land issue from the very first day of the Monsoon session which started on July 28, and it continued to attack on the sixth day of the session as well.

A fresh political attack was made by former Minister and Congress MLA Jaivardhan Singh, alleging that tribals’ land was being forcibly taken away.

Raghogarh MLA Jaivardhan, who is the son of former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh, alleged that, “tribals are being evicted from their land and suppressed with false allegations”.

Chief Minister Yadav, who was present in the House, responded himself, stating that, “More than 26,500 forest rights leases to the tribal community during the tenure of the BJP government, which is the highest in Madhya Pradesh.”

State Tribal Affairs Minister Vijay Shah later told the House that the decision of forest land lease cases would be taken after conducting physical and aerial survey and complying with the guidelines laid down under the Madhya Pradesh Van Bhumi Shashwat Patta Prati Sanharan Rules, 2005.

The Union government’s report revealed that Madhya Pradesh — which has the largest forest cover in the country — identified and registered more than 15,200 hectares of degraded forest land for the programme (until February 2), the highest among all states across the country.

As per the rule, any individual or private entity can undertake plantation on degraded land, including open forest and scrub land, wasteland, and catchment areas, and earn green credits that can be traded and serve as a metric for corporate social responsibility.

On the other hand, Congress had been collectively raising tribal land issue aggressively for the past few months from now; accelerated its voice again during the ongoing Monsoon session of the Assembly.

Congress legislators, led by the Leader of Opposition (LoP) Umang Singhar had held a symbolic protest on July 28.

Initially, the Congress had launched an scathing attack at the BJP on tribals’ rights and forest land issues earlier in June this year when LoP Singhar, along with former Union Minister Arun Yadav, and Congress Working Committee member Kamleshwar Patel had said that tribals in the state are being denied their rights to water, forests, and land by the BJP government.

Former Chief Minister Kamal Nath and former LoP Ajay Singh and senior tribal leader as well as former Union Minister Kantilal Bhuria’s son Vikrant Bhuria, who is a Congress MLA from Jhabua, had also been raising this issue at different occasions.

–IANS

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