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The Bharatiya Janata Party is against the eviction of people residing in forestlands, party president M Venkaiah Naidu said in Bhubaneswar on Monday evening.
Naidu said the recent move by the Union forest and environment ministry to evict people residing in the country's reserve forest areas after 1980 would have disastrous effects. The problem should be seen from a human angle, he added.
"We stand with tribals on this issue. We will meet Prime Minister [Atal Bihari Vajpayee] and request him to take step to rectify the act on the basis of which they are going to be homeless. They cannot be vacated from the land that they have been holding for years," he said.
Besides, he argued, the respective states should also go for a legislation favoring the tribals.
"We have requested the forest ministry to simplify the procedure to stop eviction of poor peoples from the forestland... many tribals do not have land patta or cannot show records to substantiate that they have been living [in the forestlands] prior to 1980."
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