Congress’ ‘Kisan Nyay Yatra’, scheduled to kick off from Tuesday at Baran,is apparently aimed at raising issues of agrarian community and woo farmers in wake of assembly election which is due next year. Albeit, with the rally, the party intends to mobilise tribals, who were considered traditional voters of the party. However, in the last assembly elections in 2013 it lost badly to the ruling party in 2013.
Baran, where a mass rally has been planned which will convert into a 100km foot march for three days ending in Jhalawar, is seen as state Congress chief Sachin Pilot’s move to challenge the CM Vasundhara Raje on her home turf. The party has been demanding a complete loan waiver for farmers, claiming it would force even Raje government to do so. Pilot also claimed that Baran was chosen for the rally as most of the farmers committed suicide in the Hadauti region. Yet, this is not all the party wishes to cater with the move.
Baran has been a priority by AICC vice-president Rahul Gandhi. Last year in December during in mass rally he launched a scathing attack on Modi and Raje governments for ignoring the tribals. Similarly, in 2013, just before the assembly polls, the Gandhi scion went to the same place and held a mass rally on stone laying ceremony for the Parwan river dam project. Even this year, Gandhi visited Banswara, another dominant area of tribals.
Pilot now follows the footprint of Gandhi under a planned strategy and this farmers’ rally in a tribal area of Baran has been chalked out.The sources within the party admit that tribals have become the foremost priority and if the party succeeds in the strategy then it could change the poll arithmetic in the assembly election.
The tribals play an important role in 25 assembly constituencies in Rajasthan that can change the results significantly. Thereby, Rahul Gandhi’s visit to Banswara in July this year was followed by PM Modi visit to Udaipur, another tribal stronghold, where he doled out infrastructure project of Rs15000 crores.
To counter Congresss’ plan to woo tribal voters, the Raje government is also in active mode. Just before the PM ‘s visit, the Rajasthan government had doubled the number of employment days for tribals in Udaipur and Baran districts under MNERGA. This made the number of working days from the present mandatory 100 days to 200 days.
