Was tribal ire one of the factors that upset the apple cart of the Congress in Chamarajanagar where its candidate and two-time MP R. Dhruvanarayan lost to V. Srinivas Prasad of the BJP?
The speculation gains significance considering that in a constituency where 12, 57,942 people vote, Mr. Dhruvarayan lost by a wafer thin margin of 1,817 votes.
Much of the damage has been attributed to the entry of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) whose candidate Shivakumara garnered 87,631 votes and drove a wedge in the support base of the Dalit community that perhaps benefited the five-time MP and former Minister Srinivas Prasad, ensuring his victory. Incidentally, Mr. Prasad was inflicted a heavy defeat in the Nanjangud byelections held for the State Assembly in 2017.
But activists who have worked with the tribal community aver that notwithstanding the voting pattern and entry of BSP, Mr. Dhruvanarayan could still have managed a victory had he erased the perception that the tribals of H.D. Kote were being ignored and made sincere efforts to implement the Forest Rights Act (FRA) 2006.
There are nearly 13,000 tribal voters in H.D. Kote taluk which is part of the Mysuru district but falls under the Chamarajanagar parliamentary constituency.
In Mysuru district, as many as 7,275 applications were filed by tribals to get benefits under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, also known as FRA. A bulk of them were from H.D. Kote alone and out of these, 6,459 were rejected by the State government.
This put a question mark on their future and the tribals were also left with uncertainty after a recent Supreme Court ruling to evict applicants whose claims have been rejected. (Subsequently the apex court stayed its own order and directed the State government to review the rejected applications and submit a status report before the next hearing slated for July 10).
However, given the uncertainty, there was simmering discontent among tribals of H.D. Kote who decided to vote against Mr. Dhruvaranayan en masse for not resolving their grievances, said M.B. Prabhu, a tribal rights activist fighting for the implementation of FRA. “There was tribal anger and grouse against him in H.D. Kote which has 115 haadis or hamlets and in Nanjangud which has 4 hamlets,” he added. Almost 3,000 applications from H.D. Kote were rejected and this translates to nearly 10,000 to 12,000 votes assuming that there are 3 voters in each family.
There is a perception that Siddaramaiah was the Chief Minister for five years around the same time when Mr. Dhruvaranayan was MP and should have displayed a greater interest in resolving grievances surrounding the FRA and the tribals.
Also, the law was enacted 13 years ago and Mr. Dhruvanarayan was an MP for 10 years. But he simply choose to ignore H.D. Kote though he had a good reputation of taking up development works in Chamarajanagar, said S. Sreekanth of Development through Education (DEED).
The tribals of H.D. Kote did some plain talking this year during a few meetings and averred that they would not vote for the Congress. In the final analysis, with the margin being slender, these votes may have made a difference, he said.
While this may not be the only factor for Mr. Dhruvanarayan’s defeat, the opportunity to have addressed the forest rights issue and failure to do so when it was within its ambit, will come to haunt the Congress as it introspects on its defeat in Chamarajanagar.
