Madhya Pradesh: A despicable act upsets BJP’s tribal outreach plan for assembly polls

Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan. (File image)

It is easy to gauge the high electoral stakes of the tribal vote in  poll-bound Madhya Pradesh from the knee-jerk reactions of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to a viral video showing a Bharatiya Janata Party worker urinating on the face of a terrified tribal man. The massive outrage that followed on social media, had prompted a series of damage control exercises.

The state booked the accused Pravesh Shukla under the National Security Act, demolished a part of Shukla’s house, government officials escorted the victim to the Chief Minister’s residence where Chouhan washed his feet and expressed apology for the acute humiliation, and the  Sidhi collector led a team of officials to hand over Rs 6.5 lakh financial assistance to the victim at his thatched hut. Meanwhile, leaders of the ruling and opposition parties vied with  each other at the village to meet and sympathise with the victim.

Tribal Anger

All this hustle and bustle at the nondescript Kubri village in Sidhi district, 600 kilometres from Bhopal and one of the most backward tribal-dominated districts, had one objective: placating tribals. The abominable incident has provoked furor among tribals of various denominations such as Kol, Gond, Bhil,  Baiga across the state. The 36-year-old victim, who appeared to be helpless in the face of sickening cruelty, belongs to the Kol community, the third largest tribal community in the state after Bhils and Gonds.

It was a measure of the pent-up anguish of the community that when local BJP MLA Kedarnath Shukla went to Kubri village to meet the kin of the tribal whose face was urinated upon, he was chased away by women wielding footwear in their hands. They were particularly angry because accused Pravesh Shukla was not only a BJP worker but also an authorised representative of the MLA.

The women’s audacity was unprecedented because the legislator, Kedarnath Shukla, is known as a local bahubali whose name strikes terror in the docile Kol community. He is facing allegations of forcibly grabbing land of many tribal families in the Sidhi district. The Congress has alleged that the accused was not only associated with Kedarnath Shukla but also had access to other senior leaders, including ministers. His photographs with BJP leaders were released to the media.

BJP’s 2018 Nightmare

This one incident has badly hit BJP’s painstaking efforts in the last two years to set a narrative that the Shivraj government truly cared for the welfare of over one crore tribals in the state and spared no efforts to honour the tribal Asmita.

To add to the BJP’s crisis, the CM’s stringent action against the accused has angered a section of the Brahmin community who is decrying demolition of  Pravesh Shukla’s house though condemning his unpardonable act. The MP chapter of the All India Brahman Sabha has announced it will move to the MP high court against the razing of a part of Shukla’s house, arguing that the family was unnecessarily punished for his crime.

Tribals account for slightly more than 21 percent of the state’s population. Of the 230 seats in the assembly 47 are reserved for STs, and in another roughly 40 seats, tribals are influential vote blocs. Traditionally, tribals have been steadfastly loyal to the Congress. But in successive assembly elections since 2003, the BJP managed to bring a large chunk of tribal votes to its side. In the 2018 election, though, a majority of tribals reverted to the Congress fold with the party winning 31 out of 47 ST seats. However, unlike the 2018 Assembly elections, the Modi wave of 2019 allowed the BJP to pocket 28 Lok Sabha seats, including all the six reserved parliamentary constituencies, in the Lok Sabha elections.

Outreach Programmes Dented

In order to woo tribal voters back, the state BJP embarked on an ambitious plan nearly two years ago. Union home minister Amit Shah inaugurated the tribal outreach plan from Jabalpur in September 2021. Since then, the Shivraj Singh government has organised conventions across predominantly tribal regions where a slew of   schemes aimed specifically at tribal welfare were launched.

Incidentally, the video that has sent shockwaves in the BJP, came to light only four days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a gathering in Shahdol  as part of the continuing BJP tribal outreach programme in the state. How serious the BJP is about the programme was apparent from the fact that Modi visited poll-bound MP twice in four days. His scheduled visit to Shahdol on June 27 had to be cancelled due to inclement weather.

Months after unseating the Congress government in early 2020, the BJP began wooing the tribal population by acknowledging tribal icons, building museums to honour tribal freedom fighters, and celebrating their birth anniversaries and festivals on a big scale. The outreach included renaming railway stations and a university and holding tribal conventions. How the Sidhi incident undermines all these efforts remains to be seen.

Rakesh Dixit is a senior journalist based in Bhopal. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.