A few days ago, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje stood in front of a large crowd in Hindoli and blamed her audience for their Bharatiya Janata Party Lok Sabha candidate. “Do you want him to stand from here?” she yelled, with a small grin, receiving a loud cheer in return. “Accha, take him. He is now your responsibility. You picked him.”
She then went on to insist that this was not going to be an election of caste, religion or community. “Not Jat, nor Rajput, not Meena, nor Brahmin, not Hindu nor Muslim," she said. "This is a vote for development, for Rajasthan, and along with Narendra Modiji, a vote for Hindustan.”
At just about the same time, scores of BJP leaders were fanning into the Barmer district in the westernmost portion of India’s largest geographical state. The names of the leaders read like a checklist of some of the biggest votebanks in Rajasthan: a state minister from each of the Rajput, Muslim, Mali and Jain communities, and MLAs from Meghwal, Sain, Rebari, Brahmi, Sindhi and Jat backgrounds.
Their task: to ensure the defeat of former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh, who was expelled from the BJP after he decided to run as an independent when he was denied a seat of his choice. Raje might have been talking of a politics that ignored identity and surfing the Modi wave, but she wasn’t willing to let her Barmer candidate — Sonaram Chaudhury, a recent Congress defector — lose votes simply because he is Jat.
The Barmer siege is just one of the many tactics Raje has pulled out in the last few months in an effort to achieve "Mission 25": winning all 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan, most of which goes to the polls today. At the heart of her effort, hiding under the crest of the Modi wave, is careful caste arithmetic that seeks to maximise on gains that resulted from last year's assembly polls and from the rejigging of polities in the delimitation exercise in the mid-2000s.
The thrust of the caste calculation is wooing the state’s Jats. Raje’s animosity with Jaswant Singh has been seen as yet another episode in an old battle between the Scindias (Vasundhara) and the Mewar Rajputs (Jaswant). But it can also be seen as an extension of Raje’s deliberate move to bring the Jats, traditionally Congress voters, into the BJP fold.
“We have to fight to keep the others on our side,” said a Congress worker in Tonk, in the eastern part of the state. "The Jats and the Muslims are disenchanted with the Congress — that’s why we lost in the assembly – and at least the Jats will come out to vote for BJP, to vote even for Modi."
But Raje isn’t only relying on counting castes. She’s also been offering incentives that encourage the BJP state leadership to support their central government aspirants. Take Ajmer, where one of the Congress’ strongest candidates, union minister Sachin Pilot, is contesting. Pilot is widely believed to have brought substantial development to Ajmer, and was one of the few MPs who was seen in the constituency almost more often than the local MLAs.
To counter him, Raje has offered state minister Sanwar Lal Jat. Jat is expected to have a stronger voice in a likely BJP government. In addition, he would be able to send more funds to Ajmer than Pilot would, since the Congress leader, in such a scenario, would be in the opposition.
More importantly, Raje has told MLAs across Rajasthan that the person who ensures the highest BJP vote share in their constituency will get a chance to be a state minister. This would be easiest achieved in Ajmer district, since the minister-candidate will have to leave the cabinet and head to Delhi if he wins. As a result, Pilot is facing tough competition from a spirited local corps — made worse by the fact that the BJP, for the first time, took all eight assembly seats in Ajmer in last year's election.
“He’s a good man, and he came here all the time,” Madhavrao, a shop-tender in Ajmer’s crowded Dargah bazaar said about Pilot. “But he has to deal with the reputation of the central government, which no one likes, and BJP has been making themselves heard. Everyone I know, even the ones who like him, will vote for BJP.”
Similar opinions can be heard across the state, usually with much less praise for the Congress candidate. The BJP now believes it will win 22 of the state's 25 seats. The Congress optimistically believes it has a fighting chance in 10 seats, but realistically would be happy taking home five. NDTV-Hansa’s latest poll gives the BJP 21 seats, the Congress three and one to an independent.
Raje might not be considered in the same league as the rest of the BJP’s chief ministerial corps — Shivraj Singh Chouhan of Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh seem to have more bankable appeal beyond the confines of their states — but if she manages to put together more than 20 seats, the Centre, even in a Modi regime, will not be able to ignore her.
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She then went on to insist that this was not going to be an election of caste, religion or community. “Not Jat, nor Rajput, not Meena, nor Brahmin, not Hindu nor Muslim," she said. "This is a vote for development, for Rajasthan, and along with Narendra Modiji, a vote for Hindustan.”
At just about the same time, scores of BJP leaders were fanning into the Barmer district in the westernmost portion of India’s largest geographical state. The names of the leaders read like a checklist of some of the biggest votebanks in Rajasthan: a state minister from each of the Rajput, Muslim, Mali and Jain communities, and MLAs from Meghwal, Sain, Rebari, Brahmi, Sindhi and Jat backgrounds.
Their task: to ensure the defeat of former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh, who was expelled from the BJP after he decided to run as an independent when he was denied a seat of his choice. Raje might have been talking of a politics that ignored identity and surfing the Modi wave, but she wasn’t willing to let her Barmer candidate — Sonaram Chaudhury, a recent Congress defector — lose votes simply because he is Jat.
The Barmer siege is just one of the many tactics Raje has pulled out in the last few months in an effort to achieve "Mission 25": winning all 25 Lok Sabha seats in Rajasthan, most of which goes to the polls today. At the heart of her effort, hiding under the crest of the Modi wave, is careful caste arithmetic that seeks to maximise on gains that resulted from last year's assembly polls and from the rejigging of polities in the delimitation exercise in the mid-2000s.
The thrust of the caste calculation is wooing the state’s Jats. Raje’s animosity with Jaswant Singh has been seen as yet another episode in an old battle between the Scindias (Vasundhara) and the Mewar Rajputs (Jaswant). But it can also be seen as an extension of Raje’s deliberate move to bring the Jats, traditionally Congress voters, into the BJP fold.
“We have to fight to keep the others on our side,” said a Congress worker in Tonk, in the eastern part of the state. "The Jats and the Muslims are disenchanted with the Congress — that’s why we lost in the assembly – and at least the Jats will come out to vote for BJP, to vote even for Modi."
But Raje isn’t only relying on counting castes. She’s also been offering incentives that encourage the BJP state leadership to support their central government aspirants. Take Ajmer, where one of the Congress’ strongest candidates, union minister Sachin Pilot, is contesting. Pilot is widely believed to have brought substantial development to Ajmer, and was one of the few MPs who was seen in the constituency almost more often than the local MLAs.
To counter him, Raje has offered state minister Sanwar Lal Jat. Jat is expected to have a stronger voice in a likely BJP government. In addition, he would be able to send more funds to Ajmer than Pilot would, since the Congress leader, in such a scenario, would be in the opposition.
More importantly, Raje has told MLAs across Rajasthan that the person who ensures the highest BJP vote share in their constituency will get a chance to be a state minister. This would be easiest achieved in Ajmer district, since the minister-candidate will have to leave the cabinet and head to Delhi if he wins. As a result, Pilot is facing tough competition from a spirited local corps — made worse by the fact that the BJP, for the first time, took all eight assembly seats in Ajmer in last year's election.
“He’s a good man, and he came here all the time,” Madhavrao, a shop-tender in Ajmer’s crowded Dargah bazaar said about Pilot. “But he has to deal with the reputation of the central government, which no one likes, and BJP has been making themselves heard. Everyone I know, even the ones who like him, will vote for BJP.”
Similar opinions can be heard across the state, usually with much less praise for the Congress candidate. The BJP now believes it will win 22 of the state's 25 seats. The Congress optimistically believes it has a fighting chance in 10 seats, but realistically would be happy taking home five. NDTV-Hansa’s latest poll gives the BJP 21 seats, the Congress three and one to an independent.
Raje might not be considered in the same league as the rest of the BJP’s chief ministerial corps — Shivraj Singh Chouhan of Madhya Pradesh and Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh seem to have more bankable appeal beyond the confines of their states — but if she manages to put together more than 20 seats, the Centre, even in a Modi regime, will not be able to ignore her.