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On November 16, one day before all of Madhya Pradesh and 70 seats in Chhattisgarh were to vote, with Rajasthan to follow on November 25, Prime Minister Narendra Modi stood before a statue of Birsa Munda, and announced a ₹24000 crore welfare mission for 2.8 million particularly vulnerable tribal groups. He made the speech in Khunti in Jharkhand, but the politics was unmistakeable; the Prime Minister was reaching out to the tribal community across India, the poll bound states in particular. “Modi has made the marginalised his priority…social justice is a generic term. Modi is now looking at justice for tribals,” he said.
Less than a month later, in states like Chhattisgarh, it is clear the party’s tribal outreach has worked, and has aided the party’s sweep of the crucial Hindi heartland. In Chhattisgarh, there are 29 seats reserved for the scheduled tribes, of which on their way to 68 seats in a 90-member assembly in 2018, the Congress had won 25. On Sunday, this tally fell to 35, with the BJP winning 54 seats.
Political experts in Chhattisgarh said that the BJP had made a concerted effort to woo the tribal community through political messaging delivered through Modi, and on the ground, pointed out that the Congress had abandoned the community. “It is true that the tribals in Chhattisgarh was a core Congress constituency, but when they shifted their focus to the OBC, the BJP has taken advantage. Whether it is Bastar to the south or Surguja to the north, the BJP has gained everywhere,” said Harsh Dubey, a Chhattisgarh based Congress leader.
Senior BJP leaders said that across the three states, they had focused on micro issues in particular region, localizing their campaign apart from the larger political messaging. In Chhattisgarh’s Bastar for instance, they emphasised a growing faultline between tribals and Christians, with fears of rising conversions. “There, the tribal community has alleged that they are being converted to Christianity, and there was tension. In Rajasthan, there was concern that welfare schemes are not reaching far flung tribal areas, and in Madhya Pradesh, the party countered allegations of atrocities against tribals by some BJP members in a big way. The MLA who was an associate of the person accused of urinating on a tribal was immediately dropped and that sent a strong message,” a senior BJP leader said.
RP Singh, a senior Congress leader in Chhattisgarh said that the results in tribal Chhattisgarh had left him “shocked.” “They managed to get seats because of the issue of conversions which they continuously raised for five years,” he said.
In Madhya Pradesh, there are 47 reserved seats for scheduled tribes of which the Congress won 29 seats in 2018. Cut to 2023, and the Congress won 20 seats, and the BJP 26. Vinesh Jha, a social activist who works on tribal issues in the state, “There is a mixed response among tribal populations but populist schemes like Ladli Behna have worked across communities.”
BJP spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal said, “The Modi and Shivraj magic has worked in Madhya Pradesh. We are winning the tribal seats because the BJP has done development for them.”
In Rajasthan, the BJP has won 12 of the 25 reserved seats for scheduled tribes, up from the nine that they won in 2018. Narayan Bareth, a political analyst based in the state said that while the BJP had focused on tribals politically, the Congress had allowed parties such as the Bharatiya Adivasi Party, Bharatiya Tribal Party to dent its vote. “The tribals have always been a focus area and many of the rath yatras that have been taken out in Rajasthan for the last thirty years, including those during Lal Krishna Advani’s time at the helm of the BJP have been through tribal areas.”
With Lok Sabha elections less than six months away, the BJP will now look to consolidate its dominance of the scheduled tribe seats at the national level, where it won 31 of 47 reserved seats in 2019, and 27 of the 47 seats in 2014. Heading that charge will likely be Prime Minister Narendra Modi, like he did from a Jharkhand stage on November 16.
BJP’s tribal outreach key to Hindi heartland sweep – Hindustan Times
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