Congress Accuses Chhattisgarh BJP Govt of Undermining Tribal Forest Rights to Favor Industrial Interests
Congress alleges Chhattisgarh BJP government is weakening tribal forest rights to benefit industrialists.
The Congress party on Wednesday accused the BJP government in Chhattisgarh of orchestrating a deliberate attempt to weaken the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, thereby threatening the rights of tribal communities and handing control of forest lands to industrialists.
Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh, who oversees party communications, slammed the state government for empowering the forest department as the “nodal agency” for forest management—an authority that traditionally lies with village assemblies under the FRA.
“The Forest Rights Act was enacted to correct historic injustices against tribal and forest-dwelling communities by giving village assemblies the legal right to manage and conserve their forests,” Ramesh said in a Hindi post on X. “The BJP government’s recent move ignores these rights and amounts to a blatant attempt to dismantle years of community struggle.”
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The controversy erupted after the Chhattisgarh forest department issued a letter in May declaring itself responsible for implementing its ‘working plan’ for forest management, sidelining the village assemblies recognized by law.
Ramesh warned that this centralization of power threatens not only tribal rights but also ecological balance. “Forest-dwelling communities have been the true guardians of biodiversity. Excluding them risks the health and safety of these forests,” he said.
Highlighting the deviation from central government protocols, Ramesh noted that while the Ministry of Tribal Affairs is the designated nodal agency at the national level, the BJP government’s decision to assign this role to the forest department undermines democratic governance.
“The village assemblies, statutory under the FRA, are being reduced to advisory roles,” he charged. “This move is not about ‘scientific management’ but a cover for illegal deforestation, mineral exploitation, and handing over resources to favored industrialists.”
Ramesh concluded that the BJP’s real agenda is to evict tribal communities from their ancestral forests under the guise of forest conservation, a claim backed by recent media reports highlighting the forest department’s self-assumed powers.
The Congress called on the state government to respect tribal rights and uphold the spirit of the Forest Rights Act, warning that any dilution of these rights would be a betrayal of democracy and environmental justice.
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