Rahul under fire from tribals

Protesters say Rahul's links with tiger lobby to blame for delay in Forest Act

NEW DELHI: The Congress party's heir-apparent, Rahul Gandhi, may be trying hard to woo the party's vote bank in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, but he has another major political challenge to counter.

The tribal population, Congress' traditional voter base, attributes the "continued efforts to delay and undermine the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006," to Gandhi.

A delegation of over 200 tribals from Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra organised a protest march in New Delhi on Friday to demand immediate notification of the Act, which had been cleared by parliament in December 2006.

Though the protesters stopped short of directly accusing Gandhi for the delay in notification, their anger towards the scion of the Nehru-Gandhi family was palpable.
"The government is only selectively implementing the Act without even first notifying it. This is evidently being done under a dominant tiger lobby, which is playing tiger conservation against the forest communities. Rahul's proximity to this lobby is the reason for the government's subversion against its own legislation," said Priya Srinivasan, a member of the protesting delegation.

Brian Lobo of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity too criticised Gandhi for his alleged links to the tiger lobby. "The government has only implemented the 'preservation of critical wildlife habitat clause' of the Act in order to appease the tiger lobby and butcher the tribals.

Rahul is evidently close to these so-called tiger conservationists, and he certainly has a role to play in the delay in the Act's implementation," alleged Lobo. 
 
On Thursday, parliamentary affairs minister Priyaranjan Dasmunshi had announced in the Lok Sabha that the Act would be notified soon. However, Dasmunshi did not give time-frame for this to happen.

CPI national secretary and Rajya Sabha Member D Raja, who joined the protesters outside Shastri Bhawan, demanded that "the UPA government come clean on its stand on the Act."

"Dasmunshi's reply in the Lok Sabha was vague. This Act has not been notified due to vested interests. Tribals are being brutally evicted from their natural habitat to fulfil vested interests," he said.