PTI | | Posted by Shobhit Gupta
Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar Azad on Sunday held a rally in Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, where Assembly polls are likely at the end of the year, and asked people to ensure the state gets a tribal chief minister.
At the well-attended rally of his political outfit Azad Samaj Party at the BHEL Dussehra Maidan, he said MP has the highest number of tribals in India but was yet to have a CM from these communities.
Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, Azad said these parties appointed tribal governors and presidents, who have nothing much to do but not CMs. “Be it the Congress or the BJP, they have stripped us of our rights. You elected the Congress (Kamal Nath government in 2018) but it fell (in 2020). We will now rely on our own collective power and strength,” he told the gathering mostly comprising members of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities and Other Backward Classes.
He said a united front comprising 85 per cent of the weaker sections of society and minorities was now in place to fight the MP polls and ensure it gets a tribal CM.
At the gathering, he read out 31 demands of the united forum, which includes leaders of the OBC Mahasabha and the tribal Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti (JAYS). These demands include withdrawal of cases lodged against weaker sections, raising the compensation to SC/ST victims of atrocities to ₹30 lakh, increasing minimum wage under MNREGA to ₹700, caste census and caste-based reservation in promotions in government jobs.
