SHILLONG: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday put forward its scheduled tribe leader, Hayithung Bill Lotha, to convince the electorate in Meghalaya that the party was committed to tribals and their problems.
Lotha, who is the national secretary of BJP’s ST Morcha, asserted that the Narendra Modi government had no intention to discontinue reservations for scheduled tribes and scheduled castes.
The assurance comes in the wake of Congress minister Ronnie V Lyngdoh accusing the saffron party of depriving tribals and a day after state BJP spokesperson Basu Chakraborty lambasted Congress leaders calling them mentally deranged.
In view of the statement made by Lyngdoh, Lotha told reporters that Lyngdoh “has turned out to be the biggest liar with a criminal intention to instill and create disharmony amongst the peaceful fabric of national scheduled castes and national scheduled tribes communities”. He added that the Modi government did not say anything on the discontinuation of ST and SC reservation.
“BJP is supporting some of the communities to be included in the national SC and ST list, for instance, six communities of Assam have jointly sent a representation to the Central government which our BJP government is favorably examining the case for granting them Scheduled castes/Scheduled Tribe tag,” he added.
He informed that besides the six communities of Assam, the BJP government would also look into the ST status of Meitei from Manipur.
Based on the initiatives taken by BJP, Lotha said, “So you can infer how much sincere our BJP government is towards the tribals in India. Till the BJP government exists at the Centre forever, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes reservation will continue forever.”
