Mission Rajasthan: PM Modi plots BJP’s comeback via tribal votes on Karnataka polling day

PM Narendra Modi (Image credits: AFP)

Barely two days after his campaign blitzkrieg in Karnataka, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has embarked on a day-long trip on May 10 to the Mewar region in south Rajasthan. After fighting fiercely to save the BJP’s only bastion in southern India, Modi has quickly shifted focus to his next electoral battle.

Modi’s fifth visit to Congress-ruled Rajasthan in the last eight months may be a short trip but is heavy on political symbolism. Arriving in Mewar a day after the birth anniversary of Rana Pratap, the Rajasthan icon of valour and nationalism, the trip is a great opportunity to strengthen the default political motifs of BJP wherein aggressive nationalism is served with Hindu symbols. Beginning his journey by offering prayers at Shrinathji temple of Nathdwara, the PM’s temple-trip could further bolster BJP’s rich-in-religion political appeal.

Beyond the symbolism, however, are hard political concerns since BJP views the tribal belt of Mewar as critical for its comeback in the desert state. The PM's rally in Sirohi is the saffron party’s tribal outreach in the region where a new outfit, the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP), has created a special political space for itself after winning two seats in the 2018 elections.

Tribal Votes Matter

While 25 of Rajasthan’s 200 assembly seats are reserved for Scheduled Tribes, they also exert a deep impact on electoral verdicts in a dozen other seats. As it fine-tunes strategies to consolidate the tribal vote-bank, the BJP faces a tough task as among the 33-odd tribal MLAs in the Rajasthan assembly, only nine are from the BJP while 17 belong to the Congress.

To rectify its slipping hold in the tribal belt, the BJP has spared no effort in recent months. Last November, PM Modi visited “Mangarh Dham” in Banswara district near the Rajasthan-Gujarat border to woo tribals of Gujarat, MP and Rajasthan. A revered spot, Mangarh saw the martyrdom of 1,500 Bhil tribesmen at the hands of the British Army on November 17, 1913. Popularly called the ‘Adivasi Jallianwala’, the PM’s rally there was an attempt to boost BJP fortunes in the region.

In July 2022, the Rajasthan BJP president Satish Poonia had also taken out a two-day ‘Tribal Gaurav Padyatra’ in Dungarpur and Banswara districts at the time of Draupadi Murmu’s elevation as President of India. While Poonia even witnessed Murmu’s swearing-in amongst hundreds of people in Dungarpur in an obvious attempt to woo tribals, Modi’s second trip in seven months lays bare the BJP’s keenness to garner tribal votes.

Rajasthan has a substantial 14 percent tribal population and the BJP hopes the PM’s trip will enable a better rapport with the tribal society and ensure rich electoral benefits in state elections. But regaining its hold in Mewar isn’t easy as the BJP has no tall leader left in the area after the RSS-backed Mewar strongman Gulab Chand Kataria was shifted to Assam as Governor. The BJP has carefully chosen a Lok Sabha MP from this region, CP Joshi, as its new state chief about a month back and the Modi rally gives him a chance to assert his leadership skills.

Can Modi Magic Blunt Factionalism?

For the BJP in Rajasthan, however, the biggest challenge is the severe infighting among its state leaders. Ever since it lost the 2018 elections, internal bickering and factionalism has been the bane of the state unit. The party has way too many leaders with bloated egos and chief ministerial aspirations – from former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje to Union Ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Ashwini Vaishnaw to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, to name just a few. Given the rift within, the BJP has failed to be a cohesive opposition and has lost most bypolls in the state over the past four years.

To overcome factional feuds, the BJP strategy is to use PM Modi’s name and face to pull votes and not project anyone as its Chief Ministerial candidate. Though Rajasthan has consistently voted out governments every five years in the past three decades, CM Ashok Gehlot is making a strong bid to retain power through his social welfare schemes.

PM Modi’s trip comes just a week after CM Gehlot spent his birthday in Mewar, an obvious reflection of this region’s significance in the Rajasthan poll battle. Political circles are abuzz that Modi may use this trip to send subtle messages to voters in Karnataka where polling happens on the same day. As he begins his campaign offensive in Rajasthan, it seems PM Modi can’t afford any complacency given the Lok Sabha challenge looming ahead. As Karnataka votes and the PM blows the poll bugle in Rajasthan, it’s clear that assembly battles in the winter could be a harbinger of things to come in the national elections next summer.

Rajan Mahan is a senior journalist who headed NDTV and Star News in Rajasthan. He was also a Professor of Journalism at the University of Rajasthan in Jaipur. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.