New Delhi: In the 2018 Rajasthan election, the tide of Gurjar support had turned decisively in the favour of the Congress. It went on to win eight Gurjar seats and bagged 25 seats of the total 39 seats in the state’s eastern region, considered a Gurjar-Meena belt.
Five years on, the perception of Sachin Pilot, a Gurjar leader, getting a raw deal from the Congress in terms of denial of the chief ministership, has dented the party in eastern Rajasthan.
The Gurjars had rallied behind Pilot in the hope of making him the chief minister but after over five years, the former deputy minister’s mutiny and the humiliation and isolation that followed dented the Congress prospects in east Rajasthan.
The tables were turned this time, as it was reduced from 25 seats to 17 seats. Ten Congress ministers lost from the region this time. Meanwhile, BJP’s tally soared from 1 seat in 2018 in entire belt to 18 seats this time.
Overall, the Gurjars hold sway in as many as 40 assembly constituencies in Rajasthan. While 8 of the Congress’s 11 Gurjar candidates emerged victorious in 2018, all 8 of the BJP candidates were sunk by the tide.
This year, the BJP and the Congress fielded 10 and 11 Gurjar candidates, respectively. While 5 from the BJP won, only 3 — including Pilot — from the Congress found success.
Kotputli showcased how the tide of Gurjar votes had turned away from the Congress this time in Rajasthan. It was the lone seat which the party had managed to wrest in the Jaipur division in 2013.
This time around, BJP’s Hansraj Patel, a Gurjar, defeated Congress candidate and Rajasthan minister Rajendra Singh Yadav despite the presence of a BJP rebel candidate, Mukesh Goyal.
Another case in point is Dausa district, where the Congress won four seats out of five in 2018. This time, the party lost four seats — Om Prakash Hudla (Mahuwa), Parsadi Lal Meena (Lalsot), Gajraj Khatana (Bandikui) and Mamta Bhupesh (Sikrai) of the Congress ended up on the losing side.
The results are pertinent given that Dausa has a high concentration of Meena and Gurjar voters.
Similarly, the BJP managed to win 2 seats — up from nil in 2018 — in Sawai Madhopur district as it managed to get Meena and Gurjar votes. BJP veteran Kirodi Lal Meena, who was pulled into state election, won from Sawai Madhopur. He defeated CM Ashok Gehlot’s aide and Congress candidate Danish Abrar.
Further, the BJP won 2 out of 4 seats in Karoli while it won 5 of 7 in Bharatpur. Incidentally, the other seat in Bharatpur was won by a BJP rebel. Even Congress candidate Vishvendra Singh from erstwhile Bharatpur royal family ended up losing in the polls.
Among the candidates from the Sachin Pilot camp who lost the polls were Khatana, Vishwanath Singh (Bharatpur), Bhajanlal Jatav (Weir). Though Pilot won from Tonk by a margin of 29,000-plus votes, it was down from 54,000-plus votes in 2018.
“Gurjars voted for the BJP due to several factors — Sachin Pilot’s humiliation and Gehlot’s treatment to the community and even the Meenas supported the BJP in the eastern belt,” BJP MP Sukhbir Jaunpuria, a Gurjar leader, told ThePrint.
Himmat Singh Gurjar, who was involved in the Gurjar quota agitation, told ThePrint that it was the people’s anger against the Congress ministers which cost the party. “With the Gurjar votes divided, it helped the BJP,” he added.
Also Read: How BJP overcame the Gehlot welfare model & its own infighting to triumph in Rajasthan
How BJP planned its strategies
The BJP had worked on a multi-pronged plan for some time to get back Gurjar votes, as seen in Prime Minister Narendra’s recurring assertion of the Congress humiliating Rajesh and Sachin Pilot in rally after rally.
“Rajesh Pilot once challenged the Gandhi family for the benefit of the party… he later backed down, but the family punished Rajesh Pilot and is also punishing his son… Rajesh Pilot passed away, but the Congress party is taking out its anger against his son,” Modi said at a Jahazpur poll rally in Bhilwara district.
Not only this — even before the poll hustings — Modi visited Bhilwara’s Devnarayan temple to attend the birth anniversary celebration of the deity of the Gurjar community in January.
The BJP also smartly fielded Vijay Bainsla — the son of Kirodi Lal Bainsla who led the Gurjar protests for reservation during the end of Vasundhara Raje’s tenure in 2008 — at Tonk district’s Deoli-Uniara constituency to mobilise support. Other notable Gurjar candidates fielded were Hansraj Patel Gurjar (Kotputli) and Uday Lal Bhadana (Mandal).
Gurjar representatives also found place in organisational changes introduced this year. The beneficiaries include Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria (the party state vice-president, Alka Gurjar (national secretary), Neelam Gurjar (state secretary), and Ankit Gurjar Chechi (the BJYM state president).
Union minister Krishan Pal Gurjar and Rajya Sabha MP Surendra Nagar were among those Gurjar leaders given the responsibility to bring back the support of the community to the party.
Traditionally, the Meenas backed the Congress while the Gurjars went with the BJP. Sachin Pilot, in a way, created records of sorts as he got significant support from both the communities.
Given the fall of Pilot from the pecking order in the Congress, the BJP kept harping on the ‘injustice’ done to the former deputy chief minister. Like PM Modi in Bhilwara district, BJP’s Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria reiterated that theme. Pilot, the two-time MP from Tonk-Sawai Madhopur said, had “no chance of becoming Chief Minister since Gehlot would never allow it”.
In September, Congress MLA Danish Abrar faced the brunt of anger over the Pilot issue when he reached to attend a programme in his own constituency, Sawai Madhopur. Abrar was peppered with the slogan of ‘Pilot kae gadaron ko, goli maro…’
The first-time MLA, an advisor to Gehlot, was pitted against Rajya Sabha MP and BJP veteran Kirodi Lal Meena. Abrar also faced Asha Meena, a rebel BJP leader who is contesting as an Independent candidate.
Similarly, Pilot’s own statement in June last year that Gehlot called him a ‘Nakara, ‘Nikamma’ has been dug up by the BJP to show how the CM had humiliated the Gurjars. To make matters worse, Rajasthan minister Parsadi Lal Meena’s statement during campaigning irked the community further. ‘Sachin, Rajesh Pilot können humane he banana hai ( I had made them the leaders that they are). No one knew them before 1984. I was the lone Meena leader who was with them,” he had said.
Political analyst Narain Bareth, however, chose to take a different line while explaining the new turn of tide in Rajasthan. Despite the 2008 Gurjar agitation and the lives lost, he told ThePrint, the community voted for Vasundhara Raje in 2013. “So, Gurjars traditionally vote for the BJP, except in 2018,” he explained.
(Edited by Tony Rai)