Why Congress faced rout in tribal areas

However, most of the tribal seats this time have been won by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and regional parties such as the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), YSR Congress, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) (see list of seats below).

It is strange that the Congress party has tried to use FRA as an election plank this time because it had not emphasised on the legislation as an achievement in the 2009 elections.

Experts say that anti-incumbency factors compounded by non-implementation of FRA in letter and spirit are behind Congress’ poor show this time. Ravi Rebpragada of Samata, a Hyderabad based non-profit working on implementation of FRA, also blamed the faulty implementation of FRA as the main reason behind Congress’ debacle. “Congress would have gained if it had implemented FRA in letter and spirit,” says Ravi. “The claim of providing land patta to one million forest dwellers was mostly confined to papers only,” he added.

Another activist from Jharkhand, Sanjay Basu Malik, also said that the loss was due to anti-incumbency factors as well as local issues.

“Congress failed to reach out to tribals or propagate its achievement. This gave right wing organisations like the Rastrya Swayamsewak Sangh a chance to milk the opportunity,” said Malik. He also said that the BJP took advantage of a weak Left movement which led to the division of secular vote.

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