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New Delhi: Ahead of assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, to be held later this year, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan flagged off the six-day Rani Durgavati Gaurav Yatra in the state’s Balaghat district Thursday. The exercise, which coincides with Balidan Divas (martyrdom day) of the 16th-Century Gond queen, is being seen as an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to tap into the votes of the Gond community.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, is slated to attend the concluding ceremony of the yatra, which will take place simultaneously on five routes before ending in Shahdol on 27 June.
Rani Durgavati, a princess of the Chandela dynasty of what is now Mahoba in Uttar Pradesh, was married to Gond king Dalpat Shah in 1542. Following his demise, she is said to have ruled over the Garha Katanga kingdom — present-day Damoh — between 1550 and 1564, before she was killed in a battle with Mughal forces on 24 June, 1564.
Over the next six days, the BJP’s Rani Durgavati Gaurav Yatra will pass through different regions which hold historical significance in the Gond queen’s life, including her birthplace, where she got married and the northern, eastern and westerns boundaries of her kingdom.
स्वराज और स्वधर्म के लिए लड़ते हुए अपना बलिदान देने वाली वीरांगना रानी दुर्गावती जी का चरित्र हमें प्रेरणा देता है। वह जनजातीय गौरव की प्रतीक हैं, मैं उन्हें प्रणाम करता हूँ।
आज बालाघाट जिले से वीरांगना रानी दुर्गावती ‘गौरव यात्रा’ का शुभारंभ किया। pic.twitter.com/hFfQXLmWhS
— Shivraj Singh Chouhan (@ChouhanShivraj) June 22, 2023
The yatra begins simultaneously Thursday from Balaghat, Chhindwara, Singrampur (Jabera-Damoh), Kalinjar Fort, and Dhauhani. Union minister Faggan Singh Kulaste, Betul MP Durgadas Uikey, Rajya Sabha MP Sumer Singh Solanki, Shahdol MP Himadri Singh, Madhya Pradesh Forest Minister Vijay Shah, and former MP Sampatiya Uikey have been tasked with overseeing the yatra along its different routes.
While BJP leaders maintain that the yatra is aimed at engaging the tribal community as part of the BJP’s extensive nationwide outreach, political experts suggest that these efforts to engage with the community show that the party does not see the tribal community as its natural vote bank.
BJP Rajya Sabha MP Samir Oraon, also the national president of the party’s ST Morcha, however, maintains that the Rani Durgavati Gaurav Yatra is not being organised with an eye on the upcoming assembly elections.
“This is part of the Maha Jansampark Abhiyan (mega outreach) to mark the completion of nine years of the Modi government at the Centre. The government has done so much work in tribal-majority areas through various central government schemes, and even in Madhya Pradesh, countless tribals have benefited from these schemes,” said Oraon.
According to BJP’s Sumer Singh Solanki, through the yatra, the party is trying to reach the masses with the message of women empowerment. “The BJP has always enhanced the pride of the tribal community through its various initiatives. It is the BJP that has not only worked to include tribal heroes in history but has also made the common public aware of their contributions. This yatra is a part of one such initiative,” he told ThePrint.
Yatindra Singh Sisodia, professor and director at the Madhya Pradesh Institute of Social Science Research in Ujjain, told ThePrint, “Whether it is the promise to re-implement the PESA Act (Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act, 1996) or observing Birsa Munda’s birthday as ‘Janjatiya Gaurav Divas’, the BJP recognises that tribals are not its natural vote bank and is striving to bring them into the party’s fold permanently.”
Sisodia recalled that in December last year, the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led state government organised a yatra to mark the death anniversary of freedom fighter Tantya Bhil, who is seen as an icon of the Bhil community.
“This programme (Gaurav Yatra) is being held in the Gond belt of the Mahakoshal region, which includes Betul, Chhindwara, Narsinghpur, Shahdol, and other areas. If the BJP addresses these two communities, Bhil and Gond, it will cover 85 per cent of the tribal population,” he added.
Also Read: Queen who fought Akbar, married out of caste—Rani Durgawati exercised choice 450 years ago
‘Concerted efforts to woo tribal voters’
According to the 2011 Census, Madhya Pradesh has the highest tribal population of any state in India. Tribals account for 21.1 per cent of the population of MP where 47 assembly seats are reserved for the community.
Within the state’s tribal population, the Bhil tribe is the most populous and accounts for an estimated 37.7 per cent of MP’s Scheduled Tribe (ST) population, followed by the Gond tribe, which constitutes 35.6 per cent.
In the 2018 assembly polls, the BJP won 16 of the 47 seats reserved for STs in MP — down from 31 in 2013. Moreover, at this point, the party is said to be facing anti-incumbency as it has been in power in the state since 2003, barring Kamal Nath-led Congress government’s brief tenure (2018-20).
Citing the share of tribals in the state’s population, Sisodia pointed out that no political party can ignore “this significant vote bank”.
“In the 2018 elections, the SC/ST seats made a significant contribution. This (Gaurav) yatra is part of a series of activities that the BJP has been undertaking to engage with the tribals and should not be viewed as an isolated incident. Over the past year, they have been making concerted efforts to connect with the tribal population,” he added.
In 2022, prior to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra entering the state, CM Chouhan had rolled out the Janjatiya Gaurav Yatra (Tribal Pride Yatra) from Baroda Ahir village in Khandwa district — the birthplace of tribal icon Tantya Bhil. The very next day, Gandhi too held a public meeting in the village associated with the freedom fighter.
On the Rani Durgavati Gaurav Yatra, Oraon maintains that though it is an election year in the state, the exercise is part of an ongoing tribal outreach across the country, not just in Madhya Pradesh. “BJP is the biggest national party which works round the clock, all 365 days of the year,” he adds.
Citing the yatra last year to honour Tantya Bhil, Solanki said, “When we undertake such yatras, the community gets united, and people, especially youngsters, get to know who these heroes were and what they did.”
It is also important to note here that the BJP has been promoting how all major monuments built in honour of Rani Durgavati were built during its stint in power.
“Stories of Rani Durgavati’s valour will be presented to the people. In addition, Modi government’s initiatives for STs in the past nine years and MP government’s in the past 18 years will also be highlighted,” said Sisodia.
He added that the message of women empowerment will remain a central theme of the yatra, along with the state government’s various schemes, including the Ladli Laxmi Yojana.
“The Modi government’s schemes have benefited tribals immensely. More houses have been built for tribals under the Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojna. Sambal (part of Mission Shakti), Seekho Kamao and several state government schemes are available for the benefit of tribals,” he said.
Sisodia explained that through this yatra, the BJP will also make an effort to further its claims that the Congress won the 2018 polls “based on lies” and that it “misguided” the tribal community during the Bharat Jodo Yatra. According to him, the BJP will try to convince tribal voters that had the Congress taken initiatives to empower the tribal community, there would have been no need for the BJP to strive for their betterment.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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