BJP is vying for support in Cong’s old bastion: Experts

During his latest visit on Thursday, Prime Minister Modi in his speech said the BJP prioritised development over vote banks. However, one of the highlights of his visit was initiating the distribution of “Hakku Patra” (land title deeds) to over 52,000 members of the nomadic Lambani (Banjara) tribe in five districts in northern Karnataka. A vote bank, the party has been tried to woo.

Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the northern part of Karnataka twice in one week, political analysts said the move is part of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s strategy to garner support from the region, which is a strong Congress bastion.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited to the northern part of Karnataka twice in one week. (ANI/PIB)

During his latest visit on Thursday, Prime Minister Modi in his speech said the BJP prioritised development over vote banks.

However, one of the highlights of his visit was initiating the distribution of “Hakku Patra” (land title deeds) to over 52,000 members of the nomadic Lambani (Banjara) tribe in five districts in northern Karnataka. A vote bank, the party has been tried to woo.

Analysts said the move is part of the BJP’s agenda to gather support among the SC/ST groups in the region.

The SC/ST community has been a strong vote bank for the Congress, particularly as party chief Mallikarjun Kharge is a prominent leader of the region.

In October last year, the BJP announced a two per cent hike in government reservations for jobs and education for Scheduled Castes, taking the reservations for the group from 15 to 17%in the state.

Yadagir, where PM Modi inaugurated several projects, is part of the ‘Kalyana Karnataka’ or the Hyderabad-Karnataka region as it was earlier known.

These districts that were under the erstwhile rule of Nizams of Hyderabad are among the backward regions of the state.

The region, comprising Bidar, Ballari, Vijayanagara, Kalaburagi, Koppal, Raichur, and Yadgir, enjoys special status under the Constitution (Article 371J) owing to its backwardness.

Modi’s move to distribute the Hakku Patra is being seen by analysts as a crucial move ahead of the 2023 Karnataka assembly.

The Banjara community has a considerable presence in the Kalyana Karnataka region. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes together make up nearly 24% of the state population, becoming an important group for political parties like the BJP, analysts said.

“The economic development in the region, despite the promises of the government and funds released, has been insignificant. The fact that there is a large migration of people from this region to major cities the state in search of manual labour shows how bad the situation is. The BJP is facing a big anti incumbency in the region, even among the Lingayat community,” said Panna Raj S, vice-chairman, the Southern India Regional Council (SIRC) of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI)

Days before Prime Minister’s event on Thursday, JD(S) leader and former Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy raised questions on why this was being done by the PM, indicating that the event was an attempt to appease the vote bank. “Such title deeds are normally distributed by MLAs,” he said.

The community, earlier by and large with the Congress, now seems to have veered towards the BJP, which the party wants to keep intact and wants to build upon, said the analysts.

This is one of the reasons why Leader of Opposition Siddaramaiah was one of the first to hit back at the BJP after the Prime Minister’s event.

Responding to the announcement made by PM Modi, Siddaramaiah said that the BJP leader was “feasting on the meals” prepared by the previous Congress government headed by him.

“Mallikarjun Kharge made efforts to convert Thanda into a revenue village in the 1990s. When Kagodu Thimmapppa was the Revenue Minister in our government, amendments were brought to Forest Act and Land Reforms Act for this purpose. We made all the preparations to convert Thanda into a revenue village, but the BJP government did nothing in the last three-and-a-half years,” he said.

“We cooked, and they are eating. After we did everything, they are now projecting that they did everything,” he added.

Siddaramaiah said he was in the process to make Thandas revenue villages initiated during his government from 2013 to 2018.

“The then revenue minister Kagodu Thimmappa in my government brought amendments to the Forest Act and the Land Revenue Act with a slogan ‘Those who till the land should own it’. Those were historic amendments,” the opposition leader said.

The Congress could not give the ‘Hakku Patras’ to the beneficiaries as it lost power later, he said.

“The BJP, without doing anything in the last four years, has suddenly started claiming that they did everything. The BJP is feasting on the meals prepared by us because of impending elections,” Siddaramaiah alleged.

The BJP was unavailable for a comment on the matter.