Par Tapi Narmada river-linking: As Cong looks to tribals’ protest for poll boost, BJP moves to scupper its plans

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The Congress is lending its weight to the protest against the PTN project with the objective of winning back its former core voter base that comprised of tribal people, Dalits, and Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Tribal communities fear that they will be displaced in the thousands because of the river-linking exercise.

The Congress’s hopes lie with its tribal face and Vansda MLA Anant Patel who is leading the campaign against the project. After organising four large protest gatherings in his personal capacity in south Gujarat districts with significant tribal population — the first one was held on February 28 in Valsad district’s Dharampur, the second one on March 5 in Vyara in Tapi district, the third meeting was organised on March 11 in Dang district, and the fourth on March 21 in Valsad district — on March 25 Patel led a protest rally in Gandhinagar under the Congress banner to coincide with the Assembly session.

On the dais along with the Vansda MLA were his fellow legislator Jignesh Mevani, who represents Vadgam, and Congress working president and Patidar leader Hardik Patel. All three leaders are part of the Congress’s youth brigade that, the party hopes, will again consolidate its Kshatriya, Dalit, Tribal, and Muslim votes — a strategy, known as KHAM, that had helped the Congress secure a record 149 of 182 Assembly seats in 1985.

At the Gandhinagar event, Anant demanded, among other things, the withdrawal of the PTN project and the implementation of the Panchayat (Extension of Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA), 1996. Hardik, meanwhile, criticised the government’s acquisition of tribal land for the Statue of Unity in Narmada district and Mevani accused the government of “running bulldozers” over Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs.

Asked if the protests would help the Congress benefit electorally in constituencies reserved for Scheduled Tribes (STs), Anant told The Indian Express, “This movement will definitely benefit us in the coming Assembly elections. We will defeat the BJP in Assembly seats such as Dangs, Dharampur, and Kaparada from the BJP.”

The 42-year-old legislator had earlier led the protests against the Centre’s Bharatmala project. The government suspended land acquisition for the project following a mega public meeting — over 15,000 tribal leaders from south Gujarat participated — that Anant organised at Navsari district’s Chikhli taluka in January 2019. To political observers, the MLA seems to be filling the void in the state Congress left by tribal leader and former Chief Minister Amarsinh Chaudhary, who died in 2004.

The protests against the PTN project have also echoed in the Lok Sabha, where, on March 25, Dadra and Nagar Haveli MP Kalaben Delkar of the Shiv Sena spoke about how it would be a “great loss to locals as the majority of them are tribals”. Kalaben, whose husband and seven-time MP Mohan Delkar was a noted tribal rights activist, added, “Forest land falls under this project. People (tribals) protect the forest and they rely on it. Under this project, 35,000 tribals will be displaced in 75 villages. It will lead to unemployment and even the education of children will be affected. It will also create an adverse effect on the environment. I request the Central government to cancel this project as a large number of tribals will be displaced.”

The MP’s son Abhinav Delkar, who too is now a part of the Shiv Sena, attended some of the meetings that the Vansda MLA organised in south Gujarat.

‘The movement may damage BJP’

Kansara’s statement reveals that the BJP is concerned about the traction Anant Patel and the Congress are getting from tribal communities just months before the polls.

On March 3, the saffron party’s MLAs from tribal communities and leaders from units in south Gujarat met Bhupendra Patel and Paatil to discuss the opposition to the PTN project. The state BJP chief told the delegation, “We will make representations to the Central government and request them not to go ahead with this project.”

Even as the Congress held its protest meeting in the capital city, Minister for Tribal Development Naresh Patel assured the Assembly that “not a single inch of land belonging to tribals” would be acquired for the project.

“The movement may damage the BJP in the coming elections. The Congress has no other issue to take to the public, so they took up this one aggressively and carried out meetings in the districts of Tapi, Dang, and Valsad. They have carried out two meetings in Valsad — in Dharampur and Kaparada. One thing we have observed in these tribal meetings is that till now they were carrying out meetings without any banner of the Congress, but the Friday meeting of tribals in Gandhinagar had banners and posters of Congress party leaders. The tribals have started understanding the role played by Anant Patel,” Kansara told The Indian Express.

In the 2017 Assembly elections, the Congress won 15 seats reserved for STs and six of the 13 seats reserved for Scheduled Castes (SC) while Mevani won as an Independent from his SC-reserved constituency with the Congress’s support. The BJP, meanwhile, managed to bag 13 ST seats and six SC seats.