RSS-BJP focus on Gujjars as part of election strategy

Tribune News Service

Ravi S Singh

New Delhi, July 5

Political parties, especially the BJP, have made a dash to endear the Gujjar community, which is spread over several states.

The community's vocation, essentially farming and animal husbandry, is electorally significant.

The BJP's pro-Gujjar move is backed by its ideological spearhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

The RSS has made a push for uniting various groups in the community by devising a common identity of their shared cultural heritage of courage, valour and honourable past.

Reports say that it started working on the community, especially in Uttar Pradesh, about two years before the recent Assembly election in the state. 

The RSS think-tank is credited with a view that Gujjars with their pastoral and rural background could play an important role in the upkeep of the unity and security of the country.

Additionally, it is of the view that going by the past record, the spirit of nationalism and patriotism comes naturally to them.

Besides, senior RSS functionaries are of the view that Gujjars as a community, will help strengthen bonds within communities, including the Hindus and the Muslims, as a large number of them have converted to Islam while still keeping up their Gujjar identity, including in the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh and Kashmir. 

Demographically, they are spread in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh.

Sources say that BJP's moves towards the community is steeped in electoral dynamics in view of the 2024-General Election, and the preceding Assembly election in Rajasthan, Gujarat and in Jammu and Kashmir.

While a major chunk of the community is still tribal, a good number of them have embraced different faith's, including Hinduism, Sikhism and Islam, down the centuries.

Insiders in RSS-BJP camp reveal that pro-Gijjar view got further crystallised following the roaring electoral success in the recent election to 403-seat Uttar Pradesh assembly.

In spite of the Jats and a larger farming community being overtly cold to the BJP in the wake of the three withdrawn Central farm laws, it won a landslide victory in which Gujjars reportedly voted overwhelmingly in its favour.

According to the BJP insiders, the Gujjar-Muslim community account for over fifty-five thousand votes in the key Amethi assembly constituency- once the pocket-borough of the Gandhis-led Congress. The party came out with flying colours in the area and the surrounding constituencies.

Subsequently, the BJP renominated Surendra Nagar- a Gujjar- for Rajya Sabha seat from Uttar Pradesh in an obvious recognition of the community's contribution to its electoral success. 

Gujjars have a presence in over 70 assembly constituencies in Uttar Pradesh and in about 80 in Rajasthan. 

In regard to Lok Sabha constituencies, the community is a deciding factor in more than 12 in Uttar Pradesh and an equal number in Rajasthan.

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