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Radhika Ramaseshan
Senior journalist
Much like everything suffused in myth and lore, politics in Rajasthan has shreds of fantasy. One piece of fiction is built on the belief that "chhattis kaum" (or 36 castes) determine an election verdict. In reality, the number of castes far exceeds 36. According to the Rajasthan Government's Social Justice and Empowerment Department, there are 82 backward classes or castes, 50 scheduled sub-castes, each fiercely protective of its identity and often refusing to subsume its distinctiveness in a comprehensive title like Dalits, 12 scheduled sub-tribes, nine categories of denotified tribes and 13 nomadic tribes.
These groupings obviously exclude the upper castes and Muslims. Among the pieces that make up Rajasthan's complex social mosaic, nobody can tell which castes constitute the chhattis kaum except to say that the phrase is a metaphor signifying a "loose unity among several castes and communities". Amit Shah, the Bharatiya Janata Party president, used chhattis kaum in his speeches and rattled off a few caste names. The Congress's optimism of wresting power from the BJP is predicated on the "support" it has from this very chhattis kaum.
Why Rajputs, Jats back Cong
Thirty-six or a 100, what was apparent in the penultimate phase of electioneering was that two of the most powerful castes, the Rajput and Jat, supported the Congress for different reasons.
The Rajputs were upset ever since Anandpal Singh, a "dreaded gangster" to the non-Rajputs but a Robin Hood of sorts to the community, was gunned down by the police in an "encounter" in 2017. His daughter Yogita Singh canvassed against the BJP in the Rajput-strong areas. Diya Kumari, the sitting legislator from Sawai Madhopur and the daughter-in-law of Jaipur's erstwhile royal khandaan, was denied a ticket because she had a run-in with Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje over an alleged encroachment on the family's ancestral property in the state capital. She's a Rajput as is Manvendra Singh, the scion of BJP veteran Jaswant Singh. Manvendra's fighting Vasundhra Raje in Jalrapatan in a symbolic contest that, however, carries political import for the Rajputs because they can never forget how Jaswant Singh was passed over for a Lok Sabha nomination from Barmer in 2014.
The Jats, true to the land they nurture and revere for making them prosperous, complained of falling on "bad" times for several reasons: the Chief Minister "selectively" waived farm loans, paid no MSP for their produce, gave electricity in small phases and inducted "only" five from their community in her Cabinet despite the Jats transferring their "bulk" votes from the Congress to the BJP in the 2013 Assembly polls.
Anger against Raje
The palpable anger against Vasundhara Raje, manifest in urban and rural Rajasthan, seemed in large part to have emanated from a mixed bag of policies.
1 Raje-watchers in the state said she was undecided on her priorities although when she sorted these out, she worked on implementing them to a T. In the blend of populism and fiscal reforms that characterised her second regime, early on in her tenure, Raje was ostensibly preoccupied with hosting the "Resurgent Rajasthan" meet to attract investors. Guest for guest, country for country, brand for brand, she was determined that the event should match "Vibrant Gujarat". Her agenda did not go unnoticed by Delhi where the BJP was installed by the time "Resurgent Rajasthan" happened in 2015.
2 Vasundhara Raje did not share an easy equation with the BJP's presiding regime. She carried herself with an aura that she felt a regional satrap deserved in a period when power was seamlessly transferred from Delhi to the BJP's weighty CMs whose importance grew during the 10 years that the party was in the Opposition.
She did not realise that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there was no place for a second chieftain. Instead of making her peace with Delhi, she riled the BJP President by contesting every decision he made for the Rajasthan party organisation. While that earned her brownie points among the large number of legislators who swore loyalty to her, it did not endear her to the Delhi bosses.
Differences set aside
As Raje fights to keep power with her back to the wall, Modi and Shah, too, have pulled out all the stops to retain Rajasthan, setting aside the issues they might have had with Raje. Shah contained the large-scale rebellion that erupted in the BJP after its candidates were shortlisted and galvanised the Rajasthan party, backed by his trusted lieutenants from Delhi, to purvey the state government's "achievements" on the ground. In part, the workers were re-activated but most of them cannot forget that for the last five years, the Chief Minister had remained largely inaccessible and her ministers were either out of sight or ineffective when they were seen. Barring her allegedly favourite legislators, the rest were apparently twiddling their thumbs.
Cong position
In a scenario tailor-made for an Opposition victory, the Congress lost the initial advantage it had by flawed ticket distribution, an inability to quell dissidence and employing a confusing narrative that had more elements of "soft Hindutva" than the issues of the day. However, the Congress' candidates and their local managers quickly reckoned it made more sense to talk of urea shortage and no MSP than challenging Yogi Adityananth on Hanuman's caste antecedent.
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