Across Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, which account for 31% of the country’s tribal population, the Bharatiya Janata Party swept seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes in the Assembly elections. The party, which won just 19 of the 76 ST seats in MP and Chhattisgarh in 2018, managed to bag 44 of them this year - most of the added victories came by converting Congress-voting constituencies.
In Rajasthan, the BJP managed to add four more ST seats to its tally compared to 2018, even as new entrant Bharat Adivasi Party capitalised on changing ideas of tribal identity with its “alternate politics”, which leaders insisted won it three seats in Rajasthan (Dhariawad, Aspur, and Chorasi) and one in Madhya Pradesh (Sailana).
