Rajasthan: Ashok Gehlot’s allies are his biggest enemy in these elections
More than lack of development, it is the interference in local administration and police which seemed to have irked the people
Jaipur: Nobody is really angry with Ashok Gehlot in Rajasthan. In fact, five days across eastern Rajasthan, Shekhawati and rural Jaipur regions suggest that he is likely the tallest leader in the state’s politics, and would win a popularity contest for the chief minister’s post by a distance. The only question is whether Gehlot’s personal popularity is enough to break Rajasthan’s long-standing tradition of voting out the incumbent every time. The answer to this question will depend on whether headwinds from several of Gehlot’s rogue local lieutenants will neutralise the tailwinds for his re-election bid from the social and economic underclass in the state.
In any other elections, Gehlot, the proverbial “magician” politician would have taken care of these headwinds by keeping his local leaders on a tight leash during his term, and even denying them a ticket to cut his losses. But his factional battle with Sachin Pilot throughout the course of this term forced him to make a choice between giving a long rope to these elements or see them break ranks to join the other camp. The later scenario would have finished Gehlot much before 2023.
The result is an electoral dialectic between goodwill from gratitude for welfare schemes and pro-poor governance to anger against the local MLAs who are blamed for promoting their own cronies or siding with vested interests against public good.
According to people in the state, there are examples galore.
The Khandela assembly constituency (AC) in Sikar district, and Dudu, a Schedule Caste (SC) reserve AC in what is now Dudu district, are two places where Gehlot’s magic touch worked in the 2018 elections. Both these ACs elected independent MLAs, Mahadeo Singh and Babulal Nagar respectively, who went on to join the Congress after the elections. HT visited Royal village in Khandela and Gangota Khurd village in Dudu AC, and the sentiment was one of strong anti-incumbency against the local MLAs.
More than lack of development, it is the interference in local administration and police which seemed to have irked the people. There were complaints of the MLA being abusive towards the local bureaucracy and forcing police to go easy on criminal elements. Nagar’s image is that of a muscleman who won the elections in 2018 without a party ticket despite being sent to jail in a rape case in which he was later acquitted. Villagers in Gangta Khurd accuse him of vitiating the local atmosphere through his cronies. He is also blamed for abusing local officials in full public view. The sentiment in Royal village is not very different. Here, the sarpanch from another village -- the panchayat consists of more than one village -- who has neglected Royal’s problems, is seen as Mahadeo Singh’s man and has added fuel to the local anti-incumbency fire.
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In Sawai Madhopur, the story is not very different. Even Muslims, despite the local Congress MLA Danish Abrar being a Muslim himself, complain about what they call his authoritarian ways. Rukhsar, a Muslim farmer in Karmoda village near Sawai Madhopur, comes from a family of Congress activists, and his father and uncle have been the head of the local panchayat. Abrar has got cases lodged on 243 Muslim young men for criticising him – an allegation HT could not verify independently – he said, while rooting for Asha Meena, a rebel candidate of the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) who finished second on the BJP’s ticket with 37% vote share in 2018 against Abrar’s comfortable 52.6% vote share. In a lot of these districts, the Congress could have gained had it dropped the incumbent MLAs to field a new face.
HT reached out to individual MLAs for comments about these criticisms but they did not respond.
To be sure, it will be a mistake to believe that Gehlot’s loyalists have no boots or issues working for them on the ground. Ramesh Ahlawat, a Jat worker for the Congress HT spoke to in Khatwal village in Dudu AC, is confident about Nagar’s prospects. Dudu has become the first place in India to become a district from being a panchayat. This will bring development to our area, and it is Babulal Nagar’s gift to his voters, we were told. Dudu is not an isolated example here. In August this year, Gehlot government increased the number of districts from 33 to 50 in Rajasthan. Strengthening local patronage networks of Gehlot’s loyalists was big consideration behind this move.
In the end, these elections will perhaps boil down to whether Gehlot’s local lieutenants have created more angry workers like Rukhsar or motivated ones like Ramesh working for them on the ground. Gehlot himself will be hoping that his core voter base of Rajasthan’s social-economic underclass can compensate for some of the damage.
An overwhelming share of voters from SC communities like Bairwas or Raigars HT spoke to across the state are silently rooting for the Congress. In Gehlot, they see a benefactor who always cares for them. By pushing further on the welfare front, Gehlot is hoping to turn the election from a seat-by-seat contest to a referendum on himself rather than his (often) unpopular MLAs. We will know on December 3 whether the strategy has worked.