Exhorting the youth to fight fearlessly, and snatch their rights from the BJP, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday launched Tribal Satyagrah from Dahod in Gujarat.
The Satyagrah is aimed at reaching out to 10 lakh homes in the tribal belt of Gujarat – from Ambaji to Umargaon – and knowing problems faced by the tribals and becoming their voice in raising the issues. Gandhi also released a mobile application for the Satyagrah.
Taking on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Gandhi said that since 2014, Modi has been doing at the Centre what he was doing in Gujarat. Gandhi said two Indias were taking shape, one of the rich having selected billionaires and the other of the common man. “We do not want two Indias. We want one India,” he said.
Narrating the initiatives taken by the Congress governments in Rajasthan and Chhatisgarh, Gandhi said they do not give hollow promises. He said should there be a Congress government in Gujarat in 2022, it would be on a co-operative model, a model like that of AMUL’s where people’s voice is heard. He told the tribals that they have rights on water, land and forests.
Mentioning that the struggle ahead is difficult, he asked the youth to join the Congress in the struggle said that they would have to make new Gujarat for it is question of their education, health and other opportunities.
Gandhi said that had it would have been difficult to imagine the situation without MNREGA during Covid-19 times. Modi had mocked at the same MNREGA, Gandhi reminded. He also reminded the gathering that demonetisation and the GST did not do good for the common man and the poor strata of the society.
This time around, he did not even spare the media and said that something else is highlighted when 3 lakh people have died in Gujarat due to Covid-19. In the country, he said, 50 to 60 lakh people died and Ganga riverbanks were flooded with dead bodies. The media, he held, would not say about all this and divert the attention on other issues, some actors meeting the PM.
Out of the 182 assembly seats, 27 seats are reserved for the tribals and the Congress has 12 seats. There are a total of 40 seats where the tribal votes become the decisive factor.
Even the BJP and new entrant Aam Aadmi Party are aware of the significance of the tribal vote share and are leaving no stone unturned to woo them.
Prime Minister Modi has already addressed a rally in Dahod and it was followed by a joint public meeting by New Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and tribal leader Chhotubhai Vasava.