Kamal Nath demands white paper on Shivraj government's tribal welfare steps

A day after the mega Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas event in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh Congress president and ex-chief minister Kamal Nath has demanded that the BJP government release a white paper on the steps taken for tribal welfare during 17 years of its rule.

In a series of tweets, Nath said the white paper should include the details of expenditure on the Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas programme, the heads from which the funds were used and the intended benefits of the programme for the tribal people. “Let the truth of Shivraj government (regarding tribal welfare work) come before the tribal people of the state,” Nath said.

Nath's demands come on the backdrop of both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan repeatedly saying during and before the Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas programme that the governments prior to the BJP—meaning the Congress-led governments—had not done anything for the welfare of tribals and considered them mere vote banks. The PM and CM also said that it was the BJP government that undertook various welfare work for the upliftment of this community and gave them due honour and recognition.

In his tweets, Nath asked the government to release details of the tribal welfare work, decisions taken for tribal welfare, their implementation, schemes and programmes and the number of beneficiaries, budget allocation and the money spent by the government in the past 17 years. Also, it should give details of the amount received from the Centre in the past seven years for tribal welfare, work in education and health sector for tribal people, amount spent on them, details of the incidents of harassment and exploitation of tribal people and action taken on them during the past 17 years, he said.

'Not EPI but EBI culture'

Nath also took a dig at the statement of PM Modi that the VIP (very important person) culture is now turning into EPI (every person is important) culture under BJP rule, saying that in truth the prevalent culture is of 'EBI' meaning 'every BJP (person) is important'.

“Every section of society is troubled and struggling for its rights. No one is paying heed to them and the benefit of every scheme reaches the BJP members first. Youths are struggling for employment, farmers for fertiliser, electricity and justice, women are crying out for honour and safety and government employees are agitating for DA, salary hike and arrears amount,” Nath tweeted.