‘Contributions of tribals to freedom movement ignored for 1 party, 1 family’

Jamui: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday charged previous Congress governments in the country with having tried to undermine the contributions of tribal leaders to the freedom movement “so that only one party and one family got away with the credit”.

He made the remark, without mentioning the opposition party or the Nehru-Gandhi family by name, in the Jamui district of Bihar, addressing a function organised on the 150th birth anniversary of legendary freedom fighter Birsa Munda, which was marked by the launch of tribal welfare projects worth more than Rs 6,000 crore.

Modi asserted that he worshipped the ‘Adivasi Samaj’ and his government took the decision to celebrate Munda’s birth anniversary as ‘Janjaatiya Gaurav Divas’ (the day of glory for tribals) because the community never got its due.

“Tribals have played their role in preserving the country’s cultural heritage since times immemorial. It was the ‘Adivasi Samaj’ that helped the evolution of Lord Rama from a prince to a god,” said the PM.

“Tribals also played a significant role in the struggle for Independence. But the previous governments deliberately tried to suppress this fact so that all credit was given to one party and one family,” alleged Modi, who spoke in the presence of BJP allies like Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Union minister Chirag Paswan.

He said, “If only one party and one family were to be given credit, who would remember Birsa Munda and Tilka Manjhi (an 18th-century Santhal leader)?”

The PM underscored that his government was taking steps for the uplift of tribals, like declaring districts with a high population of the community as ‘aspirational’.

“We are committed to ensuring better education, health and job opportunities (‘padhai, kamai aur dawaai’) for tribals. To this end, the budget for tribal welfare has been raised to Rs 1.25 lakh crore by my government. Earlier, it was a meagre Rs 25,000 crore,” he said. In his speech that lasted about 30 minutes, the PM also thanked Nitish Kumar for offering “full support” when “a tribal woman” Droupadi Murmu was made the presidential candidate by the BJP-led NDA.

Earlier, in his brief speech, Kumar, whose JD(U)’s support is critical for the BJP’s survival in power at the Centre, had said that he considered his two short-lived alliances with the RJD-Congress combine as “a mistake that I shall never repeat”.