BJP worries as tribal leaders approach Jogi over delimitation

By Sujeet Kumar. Chhattisgarh, India, 11:00 AM IST

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Chhattisgarh is panicking as several of its MLAs and even an MP are rallying behind rival Congress leader Ajit Jogi to demand that seats reserved for tribals should not be reduced.

Cutting across party lines, tribal legislators from the state have strongly objected to the Delimitation Commission report, which calls for slashing the state's tribal reserved seats to 29 from the existing 34.

But the BJP's tribal MLAs seem to have chosen former chief minister Ajit Jogi of the Congress to make their voice heard in New Delhi.

'The Delimitation Commission report that has slashed assembly seats in the state has become a politically volatile issue and it will have a serious impact in the state which is going to the polls in November this year,' a top source in the BJP here told IANS.

'The more surprising and worrying factor for the BJP is that several of its tribal MLAs have aligned with Jogi on the issue to exert pressure on the Congress-led central government to not implement the Delimitation Commission report in Chhattisgarh at least till the assembly polls this year,' the source added.

Around 35 percent of the state's 20.08 million people belong to the Scheduled Tribes and mainly reside in the vast backward regions of Surguja and Bastar.

Last month, a delegation of Chhattisgarh tribal legislators led by Jogi met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the national capital and requested him to put the state in the club of Jharkhand, Assam, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh that have been kept out of the constituency delimitation exercise.

Jogi had this week told the media in Raipur that the prime minister had given a patient hearing to the delegation and assured him of looking into the matter seriously if the Chhattisgarh chief minister also made a similar request either through a letter or by heading a delegation.

The BJP is finding it difficult to explain why its several MLAs besides its former state president and now Lok Sabha member from Surguja, Nandkumar Sai, preferred to go with Jogi to meet Manmohan Singh last month to express concern rather than raise the issue at a party forum.

Currently, the BJP holds 24 seats reserved for the Scheduled Tribes while the Congress has eight such seats. Two Scheduled Tribe seats are vacant in the 90-member state assembly.

With Jogi hijacking the protest movement, Chief Minister Raman Singh has refused to send any fresh letter to the prime minister, urging that Chhattisgarh be left out of the delimitation exercise.

Raman Singh said he had already voiced concern over the issue of reduction of Scheduled Tribe seats to the central government.

Raman Singh even circulated a letter in the media this week, saying he had sent it to the prime minister dated Jan 20, 2005, opposing the possible reduction of tribal seats in Chhattisgarh.

The letter read: 'Chhattisgarh is a tribal dominated state, therefore, I request you to take up the matter with the Delimitation Commission to prevent any reduction in the number of seats reserved for Scheduled Tribes in the state's legislative bodies'.