Cong Gets Back its Tribal, SC Base in MP
The election results in MP, which were as surprising as anywhere else in the country, suggest that Scheduled Tribes (STs) and Scheduled Castes (SCs) have returned to the Congress party fold, as the party won six out of ten seats reserved for these communities.
Results show that the Congress, which seemed to be losing its grip over tribal voters in past general elections, won four out of six tribal seats.
In the Malwa region, the party won Ratlam and Dhar, the BJP could triumph only in Khargone, which was declared a tribal seat following delimitation of constituencies.
Besides, both the tribal seats in the Mahakoshal region – Mandla and Shahdol – were won by the Congress.
The outcome also marks gradual extinction of the Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP) and also suggests that the hold of RSS in tribal area is loosening.
Of the 10 SC and ST seats in the state, only four have gone to the BJP. In 2004, the BJP had bagged nine and the Congress only one.
As for SC seats, Congress sprung a surprise in Ujjain and Dewas, both SC seats, by defeating the BJP’s old war horses Satyanarayan Jatia and Thavar Chand Gehlot.
Jamuna Devi, Congress leader and leader of opposition in the Madhya Pradesh assembly, attributes the return of SCs and STs to the party fold to the United Progressive Alliance’s (UPA) National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and the Tribal Rights Act.
“The disenchantment with the Congress was only an aberration. Tribals have always been with the Congress,” she added.
