Thaindian News

Raipur, June 26 (IANS) Amit Jogi, son of Chhattisgarh’s former chief minister and Congress leader Ajit Jogi, Friday concluded his seven-day march through an 80-km long forested portion of the Bastar region’s violence-hit Dantewada district.
The 32-year-old junior Jogi had begun his padyatra from Dantewada town June 19 along with dozens of male associates and spent nights in the huts of tribals before concluding his march at Sukma, some 500 km from here, where he addressed a gathering of local volunteers and poverty-hit tribal families.

“The fate and destiny of the people of Bastar to be decided by local people, not by those based in (Chhattisgarh capital) Raipur and (national capital) New Delhi,” Jogi remarked while addressing a gathering of people at the Sukma bus stand.

“The people of Bastar need education, health, electricity and safe drinking water, not bullets and bombs,” he said.

The 40,000 sq km Bastar region, that includes Dantewada district, has witnessed the killings of nearly 1,750 people since 2005. Maoists rebels have run a parallel government in the interior forested areas since the 1980s.

Political analysts here say Amit Jogi’s Bastar march is a well-thought move to prepare himself for politics as he mostly hits the headlines for all the wrong reasons. His father Ajit Jogi, who has been confined to a wheelchair after a road accident in April 2004, is also desperate to launch his lone son in politics, but his son’s controversial background has been a hindrance.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had named Amit Jogi as the prime accused in the murder of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) state unit treasurer Ramavtar Jaggi in 2003 here. In May 2007, a court convicted 28 co-accused, most of them long-time associates of Amit Jogi, but he was acquitted.

The acquittal has been challenged in the Chhattisgarh High Court at Bilaspur where Amit Jogi is presently practising as a lawyer.