Gujarat elections 2022 | BJP wants to sell jungles to industrialists: Rahul Gandhi

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi (File image)

The BJP wants to sell jungles and render the tribal community homeless, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said in Surat on November 21 as he addressed his first election rally in poll-bound Gujarat, looking to win support from Adivasis in the southern part of the state.

The people of the country were upset with the government's policies,  Gandhi, who has taken a two-day break from his Bharat Jodo Yatra to address rallies in Surat and Rajkot, said.

"Bharat Jodo Yatra  is being joined by lakhs of people irrespective of caste, creed and religion. The immense response is because youngsters are jobless, farmers are not getting paid, their loans are not being waved off," he said.

Launching a scathing attack on the ruling BJP, Gandhi said the party didn't want the people from tribal communities to prosper. "The BJP wants to take over the jungles and gift them to industrialists. All of you (tribal) will be left with no home," he said.

His family shared a strong bond with the tribal community, the former Congress president said. "When I was six or seven years old, my grandmother had given me a book. It was about a boy from tribal community.

"My grandmother would tell me about the tribal people. She told me, tribal are the first and real shareholders of India," Gandhi said.

The Congress, through the Bharat Jodo Yatra, was trying to listen to the grievances of the people who had suffered because of the BJP's anti-people policies, he said.

Gandhi was joined by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, party spokesperson Pawan Khera and others. Gandhi also met party office-bearers and candidates from South Gujarat, which has 35 assembly seats, of which the Congress could only win 10 in 2017. The BJP, which is seeking a seventh straight term, got 25 seats.

The voting for the 182-member Gujarat assembly will be held in two phases on December 1 and 5.