Tribal leader rejoins BJP, calls Congress feudal

Bhopal, Nov 5 (IANS) Former MP and tribal leader Dileep Singh Bhuriya, who has just rejoined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Wednesday said the Congress is a party of the feudals and has no place for the downtrodden.

'The Congress has remained a party of leaders and feudal lords and has no place for dedicated workers, including tribals, backward classes, peasants, Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Scheduled Castes and other downtrodden classes,' Bhuriya, who had left the party to join the BJP Monday, said here.

Bhuriya, a former chairman of the ST commission, said he has also written to the Congress president Sonia Gandhi saying the party has no place for dedicated people.

'I come from a tribal background and have been feeling suffocated in the Congress,' he said.

Bhuriya had left the Congress in 1998, remained with the BJP till 2004, then joined the regional Gondwana Ganatanktrik party (GGP), and returned to the Congress the same year. Now he has opted to rejoin the BJP. His daughter too is in the BJP and a minister in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government in Madhya Pradesh.