Tribals to contribute in a big way for 'Mission 400 plus' of BJP ::::: formula combining youth leadership, caste calculations, Tribal outreach and Hindutva may do magic

One could not have hoped for a near perfect planning.

Now the BJP has able to make deeper penetration among OBCs and tribals and have pursued the full steam works on Hinduta, Development and also ensuring 'youth leadership' as party's new faces in key states. 

It started with Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh in 2017. Yogi is now a much sought after leader for BJP's poll campaigning from Tripura to Tamil Nadu and is 20 years younger to the Prime Minister. 

Now, the party has selected three new faces a 'Brahmin' Bhajanlal Sharma (55) in Rajasthan, an 'OBC' Mohan Lal Yadav (57) in Madhya Pradesh and tribal Vishnu Deo Sai in Chhattisgarh. This very singular factor makes it a party with a difference.  

In Congress, party high command represented by Malikarjun Kharge is 81. Kamal Nath is 77 and Ashok Gehlot is 72. 

Tribal leader Vishnu Deo Sai

The BJP might have faced a crisis like situation in Manipur in northeast vis-a-vis Kuki and Zo tribals, but it is a matter of fact the party's acceptability among ST voters have increased manifold in last few years. In 2022, Droupadi Murmu was made first woman-tribal President of India. And now Vishnu Deo Sai will be Chief Minister of Naxal-hit Chhattisgarh.

India’s tribal population as per 2011 census stands at over 104 million (about 8.6 per cent of the total population). 

There are 47 Scheduled Tribe Lok Sabha seats spread across 17 states—mostly in the heartland states and in the east and northeast. In northeast, most seats are with BJP's allies if not the saffron party itself. 

In the present Lok Sabha, on its own BJP has 27 MPs. Tribal voters have significant numbers in various states and can determine the electoral fortunes of candidates in as many as 82 other parliamentary constituencies.

In Madhya Pradesh, the party has won 24 of the 47 tribal reserved seats, 13 out of 25 in Rajasthan. Similarly from Chhattisgarh out of 29 tribal seats, 17 of them came to the Lotus party after much hard work and wresting the space from Congress. 

In 2022 December, the saffron party first got taste of Tribal support in Gujarat -- where the tribals had traditionally stuck to the Congress.  

There are altogether 128 tribal seats from Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh. 

Earlier as many as 86 of them were with the Congress and now Modi-Shah campaign and multiple strategies have brought them 80 of these. The BJP leaders say yet there is still some way to go.

Out of 97 tribal-dominated assembly seats from Jharkhand (28), Maharashtra (14), Odisha (24), Telangana (9), Andhra Pradesh (7) and Karnataka (15), the BJP has only four legislators. This gap has to be made up. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has himself ensured that BJP's outreach programmes vis-a-vis tribals are linked to perfect implementation of social welfare schemes targeted towards the tribal communities.

 
An ambitious Rs 24,000 crore plan to take existing schemes to the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) was launched in November 2023. This includes 11 interventions through existing schemes and the aim to build 490,000 pucca homes, lay 8,000 km of roads and bring piped water to all households in 22,000 PVTG villages. Tribals are major beneficiaries. 

Iconic tribal leaders from the past are being honoured and recognised. PM Modi has visited eminent tribal leader Birsa Munda’s birthplace Ulihatu in Jharkhand’s Khunti district to pay tributes on his birth anniversary. 

In Madhya Pradesh, tribal queen Rani Durgavati has been honoured by renaming of the busy Jabalpur railway station.  

Blogger and 'ousted' Gujarat CM Rupani 

Politically in Jharkhand, two tribal leaders Arjun Munda and Babulal Marandi are getting due importance.

Former Chief Minister and non-tribal leader Raghubar Das has been moved out and made Odisha Governor. Recently as Narendra Singh Tomar resigned to contest Lok Sabha polls, his key portfolio Agriculture ministry has been given to Arjun Munda, who is already catering to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs.  

Now other caste games. In 2022, Bhupendra Patel was made Gujarat Chief Minister replacing Vijay Rupani. The gamble on first time MLA Patel paid well and in 2022 assembly polls, the saffron party won record 156 seats -- something considered much higher even during the peak of Narendra Modi era in Gujarat. 

As part of caste permutation and combination, while new chief minister Mohan Lal Yadav is an OBC in Madhya Pradesh.

Jagdish Devda and Rajendra Shukla -- belonging to Dalit and Brahmin communities respectively will be two deputy CMs. 

Former union minister Narendra Singh Tomar will be the Speaker. He is a Rajput. 

In Chhattisgarh, former CM Raman Singh, also a Rajput, will be new Speaker and tribal Vishnu Deo is the CM. Arun Sao, who belongs to the Sahu community (the state's biggest OBC group), is Deputy Chief Minister along with Brahmin leader Vijay Sharma. 

Bhajanlal Sharma, a Brahmin, will be new CM in Rajasthan; Diya Kumari, a Rajput from Jaipur and Premchand Bairwa, a Scheduled Caste leader, will be his deputies. 

A Sindhi leader, Vasudev Devnani has been named as Speaker for the Rajasthan Assembly. 

Notably, the RSS has also been consistently looking to build cadre among the tribal communities across India. 

In fact, Sangh affiliates - Hindu Jagran Manch, Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, Sewa Bharati and Ekal Vidyalaya - are working overtime among tribal groups and even trying to counter the ‘influence’ of Maoists influence as well as conversion card of the Christian missionaries in some states.