Hiralal Alawa, chief of tribal outfit JAYS, says if Congress doesn’t reach out by 2 Oct, he will announce the list of candidates for Madhya Pradesh polls.
New Delhi: The Congress, it appears, is struggling to stitch up pre-poll alliances ahead of elections in Madhya Pradesh. Just days after Mayawati announced that her BSP was going it alone in MP, the Congress has now received an ultimatum from a rising tribal leader who had expressed a willingness to ally with the party in the poll-bound state.
Speaking exclusively to ThePrint over phone, Hiralal Alawa, the chief of the Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti (JAYS), said if the Congress doesn’t reach out to him before 2 October, his party will announce candidates for the 80 seats it plans to contest in.
MP, which is going to polls at the end of the year, has a 230-member assembly.
JAYS is organising a Kisan Mahapanchayat at Kukshi in MP’s Dhar region on 2 October.
“If they don’t reach out to us in between, I will announce the list of JAYS candidates from the 80 constituencies we plan to contest,” Alawa said. “Once we announce the names, it will be impossible for us to retract our decision.”
Alawa, whose JAYS is gaining prominence in the state’s tribal areas, had met Congress general secretary in-charge of Madhya Pradesh, Dipak Babaria, in March.
“We are in touch with Alawaji and things will be worked out very soon,” Digvijaya Singh told ThePrint.
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While the Congress urged him to join the party, Alawa says he put forth certain demands to understand what the Congress thought of tribals in the state.
The tribal outfit has two major demands — it wants the Congress to consider a tribal for the chief minister’s post and it wants a promise that the Fifth Schedule of the India Constitution will be implemented in the state. The Fifth Schedule guarantees tribal autonomy and tribal rights over land through a Tribal Advisory Council.
“It has been six months since I met Congress leaders in Bhopal and I haven’t heard from them,” Alawa told ThePrint. “If they keep sitting on it, just like Mayawati, we too won’t wait for long.”
A rising outfit
In the last two years, JAYS has emerged as a major tribal force with a presence in over 20 districts of Madhya Pradesh. Tribals account for 21 per cent of the state’s population and hold sway in over 50 seats.
Alawa, a former AIIMS doctor, had also been invited by Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan on 5 August, where he was made an offer to join the BJP. But he refused.
In his last interaction with ThePrint, Alawa had expressed a willingness to align with the Congress.
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In a recent closed-door meeting, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh had said that former BSP supporter Devashish Jarariya and Alawa were the future leaders of Madhya Pradesh and indicated that the Congress was working to accommodate them.
Jarariya joined the Congress on 22 September in the presence of Singh and state Congress president Kamal Nath.
“Whether I become a leader of Madhya Pradesh or not is for the tribal people to decide. They will do so in the upcoming elections,” Alawa said. “What we want is a definite answer from Congress on our conditions before taking any decision.”
The Congress is attempting to form a broad alliance with smaller parties such as the BSP, SP, Gondwana Gantantra Party and JAYS in order to prevent the division of anti-BJP votes in Madhya Pradesh.