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Who is tribal leader Chaitar Vasava, AAP's Lok Sabha candidate from Bharuch?
AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal recently announced their candidate for the upcoming Parliamentary polls. A quick look at who he is
On January 8, Arvind Kejriwal, the national convener of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann went to meet tribal leader and Dediapada MLA Chaitar Vasava and his wife, Shakuntala at Rajpipla jail. A day earlier, Kejriwal announced that Vasava would be the party's candidate for the Bharuch seat in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.
While addressing a rally in the tribal-dominated Netrang region of Bharuch in Gujarat along with Mann, Kejriwal claimed that Vasava was arrested last month as he was fighting for the rights of the tribal community.
“The BJP has ruled Gujarat for 30 years, however, it neglected the Adivasi community. Vasava spoke up because the BJP failed them,” Kejriwal said.
The AAP leaders said they are trying to get bail for Vasava and Shakuntala by enlisting the services of some of the most expensive and topmost lawyers. If they don't receive bail, the AAP will contest the Lok Sabha in Vasava’s name, Kejriwal said.
Vasava is among the five AAP MLAs elected in the 2022 Gujarat assembly elections. One of them, Bhupendra Bhayani, who represented the Visavadar constituency resigned on December 12, 2023, citing differences with the party.
Vasava, a 35-year-old tribal leader, began his political career with the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) formed by Mahesh Vasava in 2017, who became the president of the party. However, even before joining the party, he was an aide of Chhotu Vasava, Mahesh's father. Chhotu Vasava is a seven-time MLA from Jhagadia and has contested as a member of the Janata Dal (United), as an independent and as a member of BTP.
Vasava was a close confidante and campaigned for Mahesh in the 2017 assembly elections. He was largely credited for Mahesh’s victory from Dediapada.
However, before the Gujarat assembly polls in 2022, Mahesh rebelled against his father and did not give Chhotu Vasava a ticket from Jhagadia, forcing the latter to contest as an independent candidate. AAP was in alliance with BTP but it broke before the elections took place. As it turned out, Chhotu Vasava lost the seat, and the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate, Riteshbhai Ramanbhai Vasava, won. Meanwhile, Chaitar Vasava left BTP and joined AAP, which was already looking to make inroads in Gujarat. Vasava’s wives, Shakuntala and Varsha (his co-partner), who were earlier government employees, quit their jobs to support his political career. Chaitar Vasava won from Dediapadia on an AAP ticket 2022.
Soon after his victory in the Dediapada seat in Gujarat, Chaitar Vasava began working in the tribal areas of Rajasthan for AAP where the BTP had won two seats in the 2018 state elections. The tribal leaders were breaking away from BTP and Vasava was trying to gather forces for AAP in Rajasthan for the state assembly elections in November 2023, an AAP leader said.
An FIR was lodged against Vasava on November 2 for allegedly threatening forest department officials and firing in the air on October 30. Though Shakuntala and another individual were apprehended, Vasava managed to elude arrest for over a month. He turned himself in on December 14, simultaneously filing a bail application in court. However, a Dediapada local court dismissed the bail plea.
The forest department was in the process of evicting some families belonging to the tribal community for supposedly encroaching on land that belonged to the government and farming on it. Vasava called the officials and tribal persons for a discussion at his house, but the talks went awry. The AAP leader was booked for firing a weapon and for threatening the officials.
Varsha said her husband had been falsely framed so that he could be forced to leave AAP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
Kejriwal, currently under scrutiny by the Enforcement Department and entangled in a defamation case in Gujarat, is strategically eyeing a political foothold in Gujarat. This state holds significance as it is the home state of both Prime Minister Modi and Union home minister Amit Shah. Additionally, Vasava is perceived as the representative of tribals for the AAP, and the party aims to connect with this demographic in the forthcoming elections.
