Chhattisgarh assembly elections: Outreach of tribal votes a major push for BJP?

It's a neck-and-neck situation in Chhattisgarh as the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress battle it out for the heartland state. With BJP just past the halfway mark, as per early trends, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's schemes for vulnerable tribal groups take significance.

Amid the poll season in the Hindi belt states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh, PM Modi launched a new development mission aimed at particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) on November 15.

According to officials, this mission pegged at Rs 24,000 crore will provide amenities, road and telecom connectivity, and access to education, health care, and nutrition to the marginalised tribes. Modi will launch the mission at the birthplace of the erstwhile tribal leader Birsa Munda in Jharkhand's Ulihatu.

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This outreach programme can be seen as a major push for BJP's election win strategy if it does win in the tribal state this time.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP won 31 of the 47 seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs). It might be hoping to repeat that success, particularly in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan.

According to reports, these three States account for nearly 31 percent of the country’s STs. In Chhattisgarh, STs account for 30.6 percent of the total population, in Madhya Pradesh, they are 21.1 percent, and in Rajasthan, 13.5 percent.

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Notably, the BJP has won three assembly elections in a row in Chhattisgarh (2003, 2008, and 2013), but most of these elections were decided with less than one percentage point vote difference. However, Congress made an emphatic comeback in 2018 by a big margin.

As votes were counted for assembly elections to the four states on December 3, trends on the Election Commission website threw up a patchwork that could end up with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's imprint on it. It seemed to be pro-incumbency in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh and anti-incumbency in the Congress-ruled states of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

The elections, which set the momentum for the 2024 polls, have seen the BJP and the Congress go head to head in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. Telangana was a direct contest between the Congress and the K Chandrashekhar Rao-led Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) that was hoping for a hat-trick.

(With agency inputs)