The Last Draw

Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and the BJP have been working to deflect the strong anti-incumbency with a three-pronged approach—divide the Opposition, balance caste equations and project itself as the only party that cares for Hindus

- Rohit Parihar

ON OCTOBER 14, when Rajasthan chief minister Vasun dhara Raje said the state Congress was a divided house where many leaders have declared themselves chief ministers and formed cabinets even before the assembly election, she made her party strategy clear— the BJP will work to highlight how the opposition party has two claimants for the top post, former Union minister Sachin Pilot, who has been the Pradesh Congress Committee president since January 2014, and veteran two-time former chief minister Ashok Gehlot, both from the OBC category. Earlier, BJP president Amit Shah also focused on the same issue, how Congress president Rahul Gandhi was brought in as the face of the party to challenge Raje as the party couldn’t fix on a chief ministerial candidate. Core to this strategy is creating an atmosphere against both Pilot and Gehlot. Caste plays a major role in this. Raje has been attacking Gehlot relentlessly (his Mali caste has negligible political influence, confined to three of the 200 constituencies) for his “failures” as a chief minister. She’s also working hard to turn Meena voters against Pilot. Pilot is a Gurjar, a caste that matters in half-a-dozen constituencies, but has a traditional rivalry with the Meena who have ST status and can tilt the scales in two dozen constituencies. Now veteran leader Kirori Lal Meena, who has returned to the BJP after a decade, is demanding that Pilot make his stand clear on the demand for ST status to Gurjars, an issue the Meenas strongly resist. There are also efforts to pit Gehlot and Pilot loyalists against each other.

The 2018 assembly election is crucial for Raje’s political future. She is the only satrap among prominent BJP contemporaries who has failed to win successive terms. Losing this election will make her position in the party untenable, especially as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah have issues with her.