MADIKERI: Former Minister Suma Vasant on Monday opposed the "forcible" relocation of the tribal people from the forests in Kodagu.

Addressing presspersons here, she alleged that certain officials of the Forest Department and a few elected representatives were keen on shifting the tribal people from the forests to rehabilitation centres. The Congress would protest against any such move, she said.

She was reacting to a meeting convened by a zilla panchayat member and a member of a non-governmental organisation at the Madenur tribal colony in Virajpet taluk on Monday to elicit the views of the tribal people to move out of the forests. Why should the tribal people be shifted to Hunsur?, she asked.

Ms. Vasant represented the Virajpet constituency in the State Assembly in the previous term.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi had spoken against the "forcible" relocation of the tribal people at the Congress plenary held in Hyderabad some time ago. The Forest Department, instead of concentrating on containing the elephant menace, illegal mining and poaching, was bent upon driving out the tribal people from the forests, she alleged.

A previous example of shifting some tribal families to Veeranahosalli in Hunsur was not successful, she pointed out.

The land allotted to those shifted families were now being cultivated by some tobacco growers in Hunsur and the hapless tribal people were made to work in their own land, she said.

Ms. Vasant accused some non-governmental organisations of securing funds from abroad in the name of uplifting the tribal people.

Ms. Vasant urged Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy to resign from his post in the wake of the bribe-taking allegation against him.

The Dharam Singh Government did not allow mining in Bellary despite the pressure on him.

Mr. Kumaraswamy was now trying to put the blame on the Congress, she alleged.

On the affirmation by Mr. Kumaraswamy that the Nanjundappa Committee report would be implemented, she said it would have deleterious effects on Kodagu.

Kodagu was a border district and it needed more support from the Government. The recommendations of the committee with regard to the Hyderabad-Karnataka region could be right but not in terms of Kodagu, she said.

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