Amit Shah to Kick Off BJP's Tribal Outreach Campaign in Madhya Pradesh

Bhopal: Union home minister Amit Shah is set to kick off the BJP’s six-day tribal outreach campaign, christened the "Rani Durgavati Gaurav Yatra", in Madhya Pradesh from Balaghat, an adivasi-dominated area bordering Chhattisgarh, on Thursday.

The party campaign, aimed at paying tribute to the 16th-century Gond queen Rani Durgavati, comes ahead of the year-end Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh.

"The BJP always strived to bring to national focus the contributions made by the tribal leaders to enrich the Indian culture and also the freedom movement of India. The Rani Durgavati Gaurav Yatra is part of the move by the BJP," state BJP president V.D. Sharma told this newspaper on Wednesday.

According to him, the party plans to hold similar rallies at four places that were part of the erstwhile Gondwana kingdom, which will culminate in Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh on June 27 in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

As part of the campaign, similar rallies will be organised by the party in Chhindwara, Singrampur (Damoh district), Dhauhani (Sidhi district) in Madhya Pradesh and Kalinjar Fort in Uttar Pradesh.

The campaign is part of the move by the BJP to regain its tribal base in the state ahead of the year-end Assembly polls, a senior BJP leader told this newspaper.

The BJP had fared poorly in the tribal belt of Madhya Pradesh in the 2018 Assembly elections, bagging only 16 out of the total 47 Assembly seats reserved for scheduled tribes in the state. Losing the remaining 31 seats to the Congress.

A statement issued by Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said the Union home minister will launch the yatra by paying homage to the Gond queen, "who is a symbol of bravery, self-respect, strength and good governance".

Mr Shah is scheduled to pay obeisance to the presiding deity of the ancient Hanuman shrine in Balaghat before addressing the rally.

Mr Shah’s scheduled visit to the Lord Hanuman temple comes in the wake of two senior Congress leaders -- Umang Singar and Arjun Kakkar -- describing him as a tribal.

A member of the Congress think tank here told this newspaper that it was part of the party’s strategy to woo the tribals ahead of the Assembly elections scheduled for later this year.

The Congress has already launched a campaign to project state party president and former chief minister Kamal Nath as a devotee of Lord Hanuman.