As poll bugle sounds, campaign caravans criss-cross Rajasthan 

It’s the season of political yatras in Rajasthan. The poll bugle has been sounded and Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has set out on her Gaurav Yatra and Pradesh Congress president Sachin Pilot has launched his Sankalp Yatra. Gaurav Yatra has been mired in controversy and even the High Court has intervened to know how the state government’s funds are being used for the yatra which is heavily backed by the state government machinery. On the other hand, Pilot’s Sankalp yatra is devoid of any pomp and show and is truly a worker’s yatra, funded by party workers.

Vasundhara Raje chose to start her yatra from the Mewar-Vagad region as the BJP thought it was good to start out from a saffron bastion. In the last 2013 Vidhan Sabha election, in 32 seats of the Udaipur division in southern Rajasthan, the BJP won 25 seats, while the Congress could win only two seats. “We have strategically chosen to start the Sankalp Yatra at the divisional level and chose the Udaipur division to throw an open challenge to the BJP with a strong will to turn the table,” said Sachin Pilot.

The Mewar and Vagad region is politically very sensitive and tribals play a major role in electoral politics. Udaipur, Chittorgarh, Pratapgarh, Banswara, Dungarpur and Rajsamand are the districts which fall in this division. In Udaipur district, there are eight Vidhan Sabha constituencies and in the remaining districts, there are four to five seats each. In Banswara, Dungarpur and in Pratapgarh, all the seats are reserved for tribals and there are no general seats.

“The Udaipur region has been a Congress bastion since 1952 and the region gave four Chief Ministers - Mohan Lal Sukhadia, who was Chief Minister for 18 years, followed by Harideo Joshi and Shiv Charan Mathur and Heera Lal Deopura. The Congress suffered the first rude jolt in the post-Emergency era when it lost its bastion to the Janta Party. However, since 1993, the region has been opting for a change with the BJP and the Congress winning majority seats after every five years. The Congress which could win only two out of the 28 seats in 2013 is hell-bent to revive its fortune and is strongly campaigning to win the confidence of the tribal voters,” observed Suraj Khatri, a political analyst.

Thus, the Mewar and the Vagad region would witness fierce electoral battles again this time. The BJP is facing massive anti-incumbency. The Chief Minister, while campaigning in the region with her Gaurav Yatra, after sensing the mood of the people, chose to advise the voters not to go for any change and give the BJP another term to rule to enable it to complete the unfinished development projects.

Sachin Pilot’s Sankalp Yatra will take him to the Bikaner division where the Jats dominate politics.

Vasundhara’s yatra in the Marwar region suffered a rude jolt when angry crowds showed her black flags and pelted stones at the yatra in Pipra in Jodhpur district. The Marwar region has been a Congress bastion and it has given the state two Chief Ministers - Jai Narayan Vyas and Ashok Gehlot. The black flag demonstration and pelting of stone by angry political workers upset the Chief Minister and she openly criticised Gehlot for opposing the yatra and organising the violent attack on Gaurav Yatra and for the vandalism that rocked a meeting spot in Pipar.

Gehlot refuted the charges of the Chief Minister and said that those who were involved in the stone pelting incidents were all BJP workers who were angry as they were not given importance because of some local level politics within the BJP. He said it was the BJP’s own protest against the Chief Minister. He said the people of Marwar region are politically sensitive and even he (Gehlot), as the Chief Minister, had faced black flag demonstrations.

In Jodhpur division, even with son-of-the-soil Gehlot as the Chief Minister, the Congress could win only three of the 33 seats last time. In 2008, the Congress secured 33 per cent votes as against BJP’s 37 per cent. Congress could win 16 seats and the BJP 15 seats. But the Congress, because of better results in other regions, was able to form a minority government.

Under the then new leadership of Vasundhara Raje in 2003, the BJP fared well to win 23 out of 32 seats and was able to form the government, replacing the Congress that won 24 out of the 32 seats in 1998 when Gehlot became the Chief Minister.

Both the yatras are being used for testing the water of both the Udaipur and the Jodhpur regions. The Congress is hoping that the people will insist on a change of guard again.

This article first appeared on National Herald on Sunday