Social Welfare minister to popularise tribal-stay

Social Welfare Minister H Anjaneya will be welcoming the New Year by staying at a tribal hamlet in Kollegal taluk in Chamarajanagar district.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Anjaneya said he will reach Gombigallu, a tribal hamlet of Soligas, on December 31 and spend the entire day there.

He said he would stay there overnight, listening to the grievances of the people. “Negligence by successive governments has resulted in these tribals being denied of basic facilities,” he said.

Social Welfare officials will also stay overnight at the hamlet, he said.
Anjaneya wants to make his tribal-village stay a regular affair. “I will stay in a tribal hamlet on the last day of every month and listen to grievances of people,” he said and added that tribal population was dominant in Chamarajanagar, Mysuru, Chikkamagaluru and Kodagu districts.

Anjaneya said his stay with tribals will be different from the Grama Vastavya (village stay) programmes that H D Kumaraswamy had undertaken during his tenure as chief minister. “I will not have any personal staff with me. Nor separate food arrangements will be made,” Anjaneya said.

Anjaneya defended his statement that he would not be surprised if the BJP conferred the Bharat Ratna on Nathuram Godse. “I never spoke ill of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee or late Madan Mohan Malaviya. I was only referring to the ideology of the BJP,” he added.