One of the hot Lok Sabha seats in MP, Guna will vote on May 7.
Union minister and BJP candidate from Guna Lok Sabha constituency Jyotiraditya Scindia on Saturday called tribals the custodians of "jal, jungle and jameen" and had lunch with a family from the community in Madhya Pradesh.
Addressing forest dwellers in Guna's Bamori assembly segment, with an estimated 30 per cent tribal population, he said the BJP-ruled Centre will spend Rs 25,000 crore for the development of 12,665 tribal villages in the country.
"In the country and the world, if some people truly conserve Mother Earth, it is the tribal society. It has been conserving 'jal, jungle and jameen' (water, forest and land) for thousands of years. Indigenous people are the custodians of jal, jungle and jameeen," he said.
"Had the world followed the lifestyle and conservation of natural resources from indigenous people, climate change would not have taken place," he said.
Later, Scindia had lunch at a tribal woman's home, where he relished "dal-baati".
One of the hot Lok Sabha seats in MP, Guna will vote on May 7.
Scindia (53), had lost from Guna in 2019 as a Congress candidate to BJP's KP Yadav by over 1.21 lakh votes. Before that, he had represented the constituency since 2002.
Guna was represented six times by his grandmother and BJP stalwart Vijaya Raje Scindia and four times by his father and Congress leader Madhavrao Scindia.
It is speculated that the Congress might pit former Union minister Arun Yadav against Scindia keeping in mind the population of Yadav voters, estimated to be 2 lakh, in the constituency.
Congress leaders have said they will go all out to defeat Scindia, whose defection to the BJP along with his loyalist MLAs in March 2020 had sunk the Kamal Nath government in the state.
"We are going to ensure that Scindia loses the election at any cost. He will come under our fierce political attack. He is our number one political enemy like the BJP ideology which is bent upon dividing society," MP Congress media cell chief KK Mishra had told PTI earlier.
In the 2019 general elections, the BJP had won 28 of 29 Lok Sabha seats in MP.
The polls in Madhya Pradesh are scheduled to be held in four phases, between April 19 and May 13.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)