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The Delhi-Agra-Jaipur circuit is often referred to as the “golden triangle” for tourists in India. There is good reason to believe that the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) is hoping to create a golden triangle of politics involving Delhi, Agra (Uttar Pradesh) and Jaipur (Rajasthan) in these Rajasthan elections. This triangle includes Narendra Modi at the Centre (Delhi), Yogi Adityanath (Uttar Pradesh), and the Rajasthan version of Yogi Adityanath, Mahanth Balaknath, a Lok Sabha MP from Alwar, who is contesting the 2023 elections from Tijara assembly constituency (AC).
To be sure, the BJP has not announced Balaknath as its chief ministerial face in the state, and it is anything but a forgone conclusion that he will be the chief minister-designate if the party wins a majority when the results are declared on December 3.
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To understand what could be a “golden triangle” strategy, however, it is useful to study the subregional analysis of the 2018 assembly elections in Rajasthan. Ashoka University’s Trivedi Centre for Political Data (TCPD) divides Rajasthan into seven divisions. They are Ajmer, Bharatpur, Bikaner, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Kota, and Udaipur. A look at the map of Rajasthan shows that almost all districts in Bharatpur and Jaipur divisions border Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. The Congress and the BJP won 99 and 73 ACs respectively in Rajasthan in the 2018 elections. But if one takes out the ACs in Bharatpur and Jaipur divisions, the Congress-BJP numbers become 57-62. The arithmetic is clear. Unless the Congress can repeat its performance in Jaipur and Bharatpur divisions – the eastern part of the state – it will have to do significantly better in the rest of the state to even come close to the majority mark.
Repeating its eastern Rajasthan performance in 2023 is not going to be an easy feat for the Congress. A big reason is the factional fight between Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot. This is exactly the region where Gurjars, Pilot’s community, are concentrated, and they appear to be overwhelmingly not in the mood to vote for the Congress (read Gehlot as chief minister) this time.
READ | ‘Cong govt sold papers for all exams’: PM Modi’s big charge in poll-bound Rajasthan
The BJP, however, is not leaving things to Congress’s factionalism alone. In fact, it is not immune to factional feuds within its own camp. For example, in Sawai Madhopur and Bayana ACs in the Bharatpur division, BJP’s 2018 candidates, Asha Meena and Ritu Banawat, are contesting as rebels after having been denied the party ticket and have cast a doubt on what could have been very easy contests for the BJP.
It is this element of doubt over local factionalism that the BJP is hoping to control by subtly pushing Balaknath’s name as a possible chief ministerial candidate, according to some insiders. In Balaknath’s case, it is not his caste background – he is a Yadav by caste – but his image of a religious leader as the head of a Nath sect math that is being played up. This is where he is putting himself as a Rajasthan version of Yogi Adityanath who will be a robust Hindutva icon and tough on law-and-order. That eastern Rajasthan includes part of the Mewat region, which has a large Muslim population with criminal antecedents, is the icing on the cake.
From Balbir Saini, a small sweet shop owner in Kaman AC to a Prajapat (small OBC community) grocery shop owner in Sikrai AC, Balaknath’s name keeps coming up as a potential effective administrator to solve Rajasthan’s law-and-order problem. These voices from the ground explain why the BJP has made crime such a big election issue this time, and why Balaknath emerges as an attractive option as CM because he can create a much-needed Hindu consolidation for the party, especially among numerically insignificant caste groups which are not big enough to have a local leader of their own but collectively much bigger than the more dominant caste groups in the state.
The script also seems to suggest what could now become a larger game plan for the BJP in state elections. Modi is seen as the provider of welfare benefits and the nation-builder par excellence, and the chief minister is supposed to be above sectarian community interests but tough on law-and-order and so-called “minority appeasement”.
So, can this strategy work well for the BJP?
There is a catch here. While the Balaknath fan club in eastern Rajasthan is agnostic about former chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia being denied the chief minister’s post if the BJP comes to power, the sentiment changes once you hit the Jat-dominated regions of the state such as Shekhawati, or speak to the more dominant communities. It is this fault line which could give the Congress an opening in parts other than eastern Rajasthan in these elections. There are some murmurs influential Jat leaders in the state fielding candidates strategically to damage the BJP more than the Congress, and speculation about a potential backlash by Vasundhara Raje’s supporters in case somebody like a Balaknath is nominated for the top post.
It’s important to remember that, unlike the BJP in Uttar Pradesh which had been decimated before the 2014 elections, the BJP in Rajasthan has been a strong and vibrant unit even before the party found renewed dominance in 2014. This is bound to generate more friction than the high-command would like in drawing the final side of the “golden triangle”.
Roshan Kishore is the Data and Political Economy Editor at Hindustan Times. His weekly column for HT Premium Terms of Trade appears every Friday.
BJP’s ‘golden triangle’ strategy for Rajasthan – Hindustan Times
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