Ahmedabad: It isn’t only the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) that is proving a thorn in the flesh for the BJP in Gujarat, though Arvind Kejriwal is seen and heard creating quite a bit of noise. It is the quiet churn in the state’s tribal belt set off by the Congress that is also a cause for concern. The churn as of now may look more like cinders in the hearth of cold. The Congress party, whose still invisible hand with less than two months to the Gujarat polls may puzzle many, understands well as one discovers interacting with several of their leaders that the tribal belt is the key to its locked fortunes.
The belt that touches the North, Central and South Gujarat regions is the largest block of 27 seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes (ST). In the 2017 state elections, the Congress and its allies won 18 seats while the BJP could manage only nine. On its own, the Congress contested 24 seats and won 15, two went to its ally Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) led by veteran leader Chhotubhai Vasava, and an Independent candidate bagged one seat. Besides the reserved seats, there are as many as 13 seats where the Adivasis can turn the tables if the vote is not split.
The BTP had earlier announced an alliance with the AAP, but it hasn’t worked out. It can win only two seats between Chhotubhai Vasava and his son Mahesh but these seats in Narmada district may appear as though reserved for them, but the party has the ability to cut into votes in the tribal regions, especially in South Gujarat.
With its ears firmly to the ground, the BJP had realised the tribal belt’s potential to play the spoiler. Between 2017 and 2022, it poached three key Adivasi Congress MLAs — Ashvin Kotwal (Khedbrahma in North Gujarat), Jitu Chaudhary (Kaprada in South Gujarat’s Valsad, who was also made a cabinet minister) and two-time Congress MLA Mangal Gavit from Dangs in the south.
And as fate would have it, Congress’ another strong Adivasi legislator from North Gujarat and former minister Anil Joshiyara and an Independent MLA from Panchmahals died.
But celebrations in the BJP with three key tribal legislators deserting the Congress didn’t last long. When Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Par-Tapi-Narmada Riverlinking Project in her budget speech for 2022-23, almost kicking off the ambitious national plan to link 30 rivers, a huge protest erupted in the South Gujarat tribal regions along the Tapi and Narmada rivers.
Led by aggressive Adivasi legislator Anant Patel from Vansda in South Gujarat’s Navsari district and several tribal organisations there, the Congress organised five huge protests in the region. After the party staged demonstrations in state capital Gandhinagar in March where the Adivasis from North and Central Gujarat also joined and threatened a bigger agitation, the Bhupendra Patel government assured them that it would speak to the Centre and put the project on hold.
However, an allocation of Rs 500 crore for the project, including Rs 94 crore for feasibility studies, in the Gujarat Budget further enraged the tribals. Suspecting the government’s intentions, they demanded that the project be scrapped and not put on hold. The state succumbed to this too in the face of the crucial elections, but the Adivasi leaders are demanding that an official notification be issued to the effect that the riverlinking project is off.
What has made matters worse for the BJP is the October 8 attack on Anant Patel in which he sustained injury over his right eye and the videos of him showed blood oozing out. The MLA alleged in his FIR that he was attacked by a group of some 50 people, led by Navsari district panchayat president Bhikhubhai Ahir of the BJP in Khergam town where he was going to attend a meeting with village sarpanch Jharna Patel. The meeting was to give final touches to a 10-day Adivasi Sangharsh Yatra, which was to begin on October 10 and continue until October 20. The yatra was to cover tribal areas in South and Central Gujarat.
The legislator and his driver were on their way to Khergam for the meeting when a mob led by Bhikhubhai Ahir reportedly stopped his car near the Dashera Tekri area. They allegedly pulled out Anant Patel and beat him up with sticks, before threatening to kill him if he entered the area considered to be a stronghold of Tribal Affairs Minister Naresh Patel.
The incident came to light only after Anant Patel uploaded the pictures of his injured face and the attacked car. He called his supporters as he sat on a dharna at the very spot and announced that he would not get up until all the culprits were arrested. The news spread like wildfire across the tribal region. Finally, the Navsari and Valsad police requested Patel to call off his protest with an assurance that they would arrest those involved at the earliest.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who is on his Bharat Jodo Yatra, strongly condemned the assault. He tweeted: “The cowardly attack by the BJP on our MLA Anant Patel ji, who fought for the tribal society against the 'Par-Tapi River Link Project' in Gujarat, is condemnable. This is the anger of the BJP government. Every worker of the Congress party will fight till the last breath for the rights of the tribals."
However, Gujarat’s Minister of State for Home Harsh Sanghavi told mediapersons: “Whether this is a stunt to gain sympathy is a matter of investigation and this will also be probed.”
Larger Discontent
While one protest is going on against the Par-Tapi-Narmada project, anger has also been simmering over Vedanta’s proposed copper smelter plant in South Gujarat, and there is discontent and frustration across the entire Adivasi belt over tardy implementation of PESA (Panchayats [Extension to Scheduled Areas] Act) and Forest Rights Act, says former chief minister Suresh Mehta, who quit the BJP 15 years ago. “It is up to the opposition parties to tap this unitedly or split it,” he asserted.
Tribal rights activist Anand Mazgaonkar, who lives in Rajpipla in Narmada district, said: “The PESA law is almost non-existent as seen in most industrial and infrastructure projects the government initiates, while the law says that the Gram Sabha would have the authority to decide on parting of land for these purposes.”
It was because of the strong tribal protests that the mandatory public hearing ahead of environment clearance to Vedanta Group’s Hindustan Zinc’s smelter plant in Doswada village in Tapi district, adjoining Surat, could not take place in July last year. In fact, the police had to lob 30 teargas shells to disperse the angry Adivasis during the hearing organised by the Gujarat Pollution Control Board. BTP leader and senior legislator Chhotubhai Vasava had moved a public interest litigation in the Gujarat High Court demanding that the Gram Sabha must ratify or endorse the project under the PESA before the government could go ahead on any industrial project.
Similarly, Mazgaonkar asserted: “The Forest Rights Act, 2006, is hardly implemented and is almost on paper after as many as 15 years after the rules were framed and the law came into force.” The “non-implementation” of PESA and FRA affects the entire tribal belt and the awareness levels are slowly increasing with leaders like Anant Patel campaigning in the region.
Both Mehta and Mazgaonkar are of the view that if the Congress wishes and works hard, it may reap electoral dividends and might even take a shot at all the 27 ST seats. According to them, the AAP doesn’t have the grassroots network in the tribal belt like the Congress and has a problem of even identifying the right candidates.
Little gainsaying that the situation in the tribal belt does not augur well for the ruling BJP, which earlier claimed it would get all 182 seats or at least break the Congress record of 149 seats of 1985. And now, the party speaks of winning with two-thirds majority — that is 121 seats. But the opinion polls estimate even more than two-thirds, right up to 135 to 140 seats for the BJP in Gujarat. All eyes are on the tribal belt now as they say, "Modi Hai To Mumkin Hain!"
(The writer is a veteran journalist and Founder Editor, Development News Network [DNN], Gujarat)
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