This One Trend Is Clear Across The 47 ST Seats In Lok Sabha Since Last Three Elections

According to the 2011 population census, every eleventh person in India is a tribal. They are mainly concentrated across Central India, straddling the Vindhyan Range and the Chota Nagpur plateau, and in the North East. This is the ST distribution:

That is why 47 seats of the Lok Sabha, just over 10 per cent of the total 543, are reserved for scheduled tribes (ST). For some arcane administrative reason dating back to the 1950s, the Moplah Muslims of Lakshadweep, who are certainly not tribals by any traditional measure, have also been accorded tribal status, and their Lok Sabha seat is thus a reserved ST one.

Until around the 1970s, the tribal districts were prime targets for evangelical activity by Christian missionaries, and conversions were rampant. But since then, dedicated, intense, grassroots efforts, led primarily by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), have stemmed this practice in numerous districts of Central India and even reversed the process in a few pockets.

Travel from Omkareshwar to Maheshwar and Bagh downstream along the Narmada, or northwards from the outskirts of Mumbai along the Western Ghats, up the spine of the Aravallis, and the change is self-evident: devotional songs in Nimadi, one of the principal tribal languages of Central India, blare from shops along the way. And every note of each melodious bhajan reinforces the essence of this change: that, today, they are tribals because they are Hindus, and conversely, that they are Hindus because they are tribals.

This is the pride which has taken widespread root in tribal tracts, and it increasingly resonates in the political domain with each passing election. Interestingly, a somewhat similar phenomenon has emerged in the North East, where overwhelmingly Christian tribes, now so confident in their identity, are consistently moving away from a sordid era of narco-separatism to one of mainstream politics, development and peace.

In most of these cases, the electoral beneficiary has been the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). As a table of the past three general elections shows, the BJP has improved its performance in the 47 tribal seats every five years. In addition, it now directly governs or is allied with a ruling party in, all the North Eastern states except Mizoram.

In 2009, the BJP won ‘only’ 13 of 47 ST seats in parliament, under a third of the total, mainly from Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. In 2014, this figure doubled to 26, with the BJP sweeping all the 17 ST seats of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh. It also made its first gain in Odisha.

In 2019, the BJP further consolidated its position in the tribal districts, by making gains for the first time in Assam, Telangana, and Tripura. Its overall strike rate jumped to 64 per cent, by winning 30 of 47 ST seats. If we discount the four Christian hill states and Lakshadweep, which has six seats, the BJP’s strike rate in 2019 actually increases to 30 out of 41, or 73 per cent.

A survey of vote shares polled by the BJP in these 47 seats offers an excellent insight into its actual predominance today: the BJP polled over 50 per cent in 15 ST seats and between 40-50 per cent in 18. The Congress, on the other hand, polled over 50 per cent in only one seat — Shillong, Meghalaya; a constituency it could very well lose in 2024.

Encouragingly for the BJP, it is in a straight fight with the Congress in 26 seats, out of which the Congress won only two in 2019 (Bastar and Singhbhum), and both by small margins. That means the BJP’s chances of improving its tally is bright.

Even more interestingly, the BJP has 10 firewall seats in the tribal belt — ones which it has won in three consecutive elections in 2009, 2014, and 2019 (it has 95 overall). It has also won 23 ST seats back-to-back in 2014 and 2019.

There is every possibility that their performance will improve in 2024, with expected gains in Jharkhand and Odisha. Babulal Marandi has returned to the BJP and is now the leader of the opposition in the Jharkhand Assembly.

In Odisha, the BJP is all set to replace the Congress as the principal opposition party. The implication is that the contest will become a more bipolar one with the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), as a result of which, the BJP’s vote share will increase in the state.

It is, therefore, clear that after generations of selfless toil, the BJP has finally become the principal, undisputed political force in the tribal districts, and, that position is only set to strengthen with the 2024 general elections.