Till two years ago he wasn’t even in active politics. Manna Lal Rawat, the BJP’s national president of the Scheduled Tribes (ST) wing, was an additional commissioner in the transport department in Rajasthan.
But more significant has been his sudden catapult into the national team as president of the BJP’s ST Morcha. In 2024 he quit the services to join the BJP and was almost immediately made the party’s Lok Sabha candidate from Udaipur, an ST-reserved seat. The Bharatiya Adivasi Party (BAP), formed in 2023 as a splinter group of the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP), has seen a rapid rise in vote share and political power across South Rajasthan’s tribal belt.
The BJP’s tribal vote bank, especially in South Rajasthan, is metamorphosing, making its core support base highly unpredictable, and Manna Lal Rawat has the task of consolidating and bringing the shifting vote bank back to the BJP fold. For the Congress, the fall was even more dramatic. The BJP still maintains its hold on the tribals. We will address the issue of South Rajasthan. The BAP is talking about a Bhil Pradesh. We will work within the framework of the Constitution and we will talk about development to consolidate our vote bank. Under the leadership of Modiji there are many schemes to improve agriculture, provide employment and stop migration of tribals. This is our focus, not a separatist agenda that smacks of a red corridor. We will talk about kaushal vikas.”
From a vote share of 28.27% in 2019, it came down to 24.53% in 2024. If you see the seats in West Bengal, the BJP won all 16 reserved seats.
Speaking exclusively to NDTV after he was made head of the ST Morcha, Manna Lal Rawat said: “These things have been taken note of.
