This Assembly Election, Tribal Seats That Led BJP to Thumping Victory in 2013, to Decide Shivraj's Fate in MP

The state of Madhya Pradesh has, in total, 82 reserved seats. In order to get a sense of who between the Congress and the BJP will get a majority, keeping an eye on trends in these 82 constituencies will be just one way to predict the elections.

In the last assembly elections, the BJP took over the reins of the state with a decisive mandate by winning 59 seats. If the Congress has the edge over the BJP in the state, as some exit polls have suggested, a chunk of these seats are bound to be going in its favour.

Let’s look at the tribal votes spread across the different constituencies like Shahdol, Dindori, Mandla, Alirajpur and Jhabua, Bhind, Morena, Tikamgarh, Rewa, Jhabua and Alirajpur.

The BJP had won 31 of the 47 tribal seats in the last elections.

Over nine-tenths of Madhya Pradesh identifies itself as Hindu, out of which 21% are tribals.

For the BJP, there are some reasons to be cautious if one looks at past election trends.

In 2003, when it unseated two-term Congress chief minister Digvijaya Singh, the BJP won the state banking on a very strong tribal support. It won 90% of the tribal seats in those elections.

But, in 2008 BJP’s tally in the same tribal seats dropped to 60 percent. In 2013, the tally rose by a minor 6 percentage.

The spike may have to do with a surge in BJP’s fortune across all states across the country given that just two months earlier Narendra Modi was nominated by the party as its PM face in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. BJP had won 165 seats in the elections, 22 more than it did in the previous polls.

This time, the Congress is likely to dent the BJP’s overall tally of seats through their huge push in the tribal-dominated seats.

Congress campaign committee chief Jyotiraditya Scindia has toured the tribal seats in Malwa region extensively and Digvijaya in the Mahakoushal region.

The Congress is seeking votes in the name of Indira Gandhi whom tribals still fondly refer to as ‘Indira Mai’. This gambit is likely to give the Congress some dividends.

However, in order to match the gains of the Congress, the BJP is depending on the work that RSS’ tribal wing Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad has put in the tribal areas over the last 15 years.

The central government schemes such as, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and state schemes like Ladli Laxmi Yojana and the Sambal Yojana, have proved to be big hits.

As far as the Scheduled Caste (SC) seats are concerned, data again shows that the Dalit voters have shown a greater preference for the Congress party election after election.

Further, analysis done on the three elections between 2003 and 2013 show that the Congress’ vote share has increased by 6%, faster than the BJP and the BSP’s 1%.

The BJP also has reasons to worry about the long-drawn controversy over the SC/ST Atrocities Act, in which some BJP leaders went an extra mile to assuage the anger of the upper-castes and the OBCs by seeking the support of caste-specific bodies like the Rajput Karni Sena.

The end result could be that the party may end up antagonising the Dalits as well.

Besides, CM Chouhan’s statement delivered in a rally earlier this year said that the reservation will not be “snatched” from SCs “till he’s alive” may end up benefitting the BJP hugely.

In South-Central MP, where the presence of the BSP is minimal, and the Congress and the BJP are locked in a straight fight, the clear stand of the BJP in terms of reservation could end up helping it greatly.

The BJP won 28 out of 35 SC-dominated seats in the last elections.