New Delhi: With assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh due next year, the BJP high command has instructed the party’s state unit to focus on tribal- and Dalit-dominated seats where it fared poorly in the last election, ThePrint has learnt.
BJP president J.P. Nadda and general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santhosh met the Madhya Pradesh party core committee in New Delhi Thursday to chalk out a game-plan for the elections near year.
Sources in the party privy to the meeting said that the BJP has not only asked the state unit to devote efforts to Scheduled Caste- and Scheduled Tribe-dominated seats, but also to expand the cabinet in order to accommodate more tribal members.
Further, sources said, it was the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) — the BJP’s ideological fountainhead — that recommended more aggressive outreach towards the SC and ST communities to address anti-incumbency. In the meeting, an RSS member also reportedly mentioned concerns about organisations like the Islamist Popular Front of India making inroads into MP’s tribal belt.
Madhya Pradesh leaders present at the meeting included Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, state Home Minister Narottam Mishra, BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, MP BJP in-charge Muralidhar Rao, and Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar.
Senior RSS functionary Arun Kumar, who oversees coordination between the BJP and the Sangh, was also present.
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‘Need to focus on restoring Dalit, tribal confidence’
Speaking to ThePrint, BJP sources said that Union Home Minister Amit Shah had done a “stock-taking exercise” during his visit to MP’s capital, Bhopal, earlier this month and had already suggested various measures that needed to be taken ahead of the polls. During his 22 April visit to MP, Shah had also made it a point to address a large tribal function.
“Since we have started preparations for the assembly elections in advance, one of our concerns was our last performance in tribal-dominated areas. This needs to be strengthened, and more has to be done for the Dalit and tribal communities,” a BJP leader said.
According to him, the RSS has also emphasised the ned to win back the support of these communities, and has suggested “small steps” on how to achieve this.
Another BJP leader said that the focus was to beat anti-incumbency through organisational outreach and “convert it into pro-incumbency, as in the case of Uttar Pradesh”.
Vis-à-vis a possible cabinet expansion, sources said that Sulochana Rawat — who defected from the Congress and won the tribal-dominated Jobat assembly seat in a bypoll last year— is a possible inductee. There may also be additions to the cabinet to give more representation to the SC community.
Course correction
Among Madhya Pradesh’s voters, 21.5 per cent are tribal people and 15.6 per cent are Dalits, but a large section of these groups did not vote for the BJP enthusiastically in 2018.
Since then, too, the state has been in the news for a rise in caste-based crimes, which makes it necessary for the BJP to shift perceptions ahead of the 2023 elections and buck the trend.
Of the 230 seats in the state assembly, 47 are reserved for STs, and there are 35 general seats where the tribal population is at least 50,000. It also has 35 seats reserved for SCs.
Between 2013 and 2018, the BJP lost many seats in the Dalit and tribal belts: Among the 47 ST seats, the party’s tally shrank to 16 in 2018 from 31 in the 2013 state election. The Congress bagged the remaining 31 seats in 2018.
Similarly, among the 35 reserved SC seats, the BJP’s tally dropped by 11, winning just 17 seats in 2018 compared to 28 in 2013.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
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