Jaipur : “The one who won Mewar, his government is formed”, this thing has been quite famous in the politics of Rajasthan. The reason behind this is the trend of the results of the assembly elections so far. Barring the year 2018, every time the party that has won 28 seats in Mewar-Vagad has been successful in forming the government in Rajasthan. This region includes the districts of Udaipur, Rajsamand, Chittorgarh, Banswara, Pratapgarh and Dungarpur. After the announcement of by-elections on 7 seats in Rajasthan, politics has again heated up in the area.
Apart from Chaurasi in Dungarpur district, a tough challenge is also visible for both BJP and Congress in Salumber assembly seat. This challenge is coming from Bharat Adivasi Party (BAP), which came into existence a year ago. After forming an alliance with Congress on Banswara-Dungarpur Lok Sabha seat, now there are no chances of an alliance between the two parties on this seat. Not only this, the party has also hinted at contesting the Salumber by-election. On the other hand, BJP, which has dominance in Mewar including Udaipur, has faced a lot of problems in the nearby area Vagad. With Banswara-Dungarpur Lok Sabha seat in BAP’s account, the by-election is not going to be easy for the ruling party.
Understand here what is the tribal family, which established BAP?
BAP was registered on September 10, 2023. Two months later, the party also fielded candidates in the assembly elections of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and along with 3 seats of Rajasthan, it won the Sailana seat of Ratlam district in Madhya Pradesh. Within 6 months of this, he also won the Banswara-Dungarpur seat. In fact, before being registered on September 10, many of the founding members of this party were also part of the Bharatiya Tribal Party i.e. BTP, which had won 2 assembly seats in Rajasthan while contesting elections for the first time in the year 2018. Be it BTP or The basis of victory behind both BAP is the same. That is ‘Adivasi Parivar’, an organization working in this part of South Rajasthan. Adivasi Parivar, a social organization of the tribal society, was established in the year 2014 and through this an attempt was made to mobilize the tribals.
This organization supported Gujarat’s tribal leader Chhotubhai Basava’s party BTP to enter the political field. But within 5 years, there was a rift in BTP and members of the tribal family formed a new party BAP and today it has emerged as the third largest party in Rajasthan. The big question is, what is the tribal family, around which efforts are being made to create a political picture of this region?
Tribal families have agitated for many demands including Bhil Pradesh
The tribal family has agitated on many issues of the tribe. Kantila Roat was the founder of a tribal family and Bhanwarlal Parmar was a teacher in a government school. In a special conversation with NDTV Rajasthan, Kantilala Roat said that under Article 244 (1) in tribal areas or TSP areas, tribals have special status and no one other than the tribals can get it. Tribal family was formed to create awareness regarding all these rights. Earlier in the year 2011, Tribal Scheduled Area Sangharsh Morcha was also established.
The tribal family also fought to stop illegal mining in this area. Be it the teacher eligibility test or the issue of increasing seats in B.Ed, the organization agitated on many issues for the youth of the tribal community. According to Rot, there are still many issues for which the need for a political party was felt and the decision to enter politics was taken based on those demands. Apart from this, the tribal family has also been demanding a Bhil state consisting of a total of 42 districts of 4 states including Rajasthan. Officials of the organization believe that a separate state should be established by merging the scheduled areas of Rajasthan, MP, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
Contested student union elections for the first time in the year 2016 and hoisted the flag.
According to the founding member, the tribal family has two objectives – ‘cultural purification and ideological integration’. He says that there has been promotion of non-tribals among the tribals, in such a situation the family is working to bring ideological unity in the society along with preserving the tribal culture. The organization has also started expanding Chhatra Morcha, Mahila Morcha and Yuva Morcha rapidly.
Took part in student union elections for the first time in the year 2016. In Bhogilal Pandya Mahavidyalaya, Dungarpur, the entire panel of Bhil Pradesh Vidyarthi Morcha (BPVM) won, it also had the support of tribal families. After this he contested elections in many colleges of Udaipur division. The result of this was that with the support of tribal families, 2 MLAs of BTP won the 2018 assembly elections and then BAP won in the year 2023.
The special thing is that during July-2020, when the then Gehlot government had to face the rebellion of the Pilot group, former CM Ashok Gehlot got relief from the support of both the BTP MLAs. However, after some time, the party withdrew its support to the Gehlot government, accusing it of breaking its promises. He said that the demands made by the government were not fulfilled.
When BJP and Congress had to form an alliance
It is also interesting that in the same year when BTP helped Gehlot government come out of political crisis, Congress had joined hands with BJP to defeat the BTP supported candidate. This was the first time in the politics of the state, when Congress and BJP have joined hands together. The reason behind all this was the growing power of tribal families and organizations like BTP in South Rajasthan, to stop which both the main parties had united.
Actually, in the Dungarpur Zilla Parishad elections, 6 candidates of BJP, Congress and 8 candidates of BJP had won. In the same election, 13 independent members also won, who also had the support of tribal families or BTP. BTP supported Parvati Devi Doda as the district chief candidate, while BJP fielded Surya Aahari. Meanwhile, BJP and Congress had come together to defeat the BTP supported candidate, due to which BJP’s Surya Ahari was elected district chief, defeating Parvati Devi Doda by one vote.
