C’garh: Jogi leads ‘stop delimitation’ movement

Jogi has demanded that Chhattisgarh should be excluded along with Jharkhand, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland from the Delimitation process.

“Sentiments of the tribal majority in the state, who constitute about 35 per cent of the population, have not been kept in mind. The Chief Minister should immediately take up the cause of the tribals and approach the Prime Minister on the issue and we will support any such initiative,” Jogi said.

The former Chief Minister said that while tribal people in Jharkhand had resorted to violence and succeeded in stopping the implementation of Delimitation Commission’s recommendations, the peace-loving people of Chhattisgarh was being provoked to fall back on such tactics.

Recently, several tribal leaders of BJP had approached their Congress counterparts to take up the issue with the Union Government. These leaders even want the Chief Minister to accompany a delegation of tribal legislators and MPs to the Prime Minister. Former president of BJP and senior tribal leader Nand Kumar Sai has even called upon the Chief Minister to write to the Prime Minister on the sentiments of the tribal people.

However, Chief Minister Raman Singh has refused to acknowledge the requests of tribal leaders, from both within and outside the party, saying the decision to implement the recommendations has been taken by a Congress-led government. “Moreover, the issue of writing to the Prime Minister doesn’t even arise as I had already opposed the recommendations several times in the past and had written a letter to him three years ago,” he said.