Mahesh Vasava: Without any alliance, popular tribal leader in a spot of bother

Mahesh was instrumental in forming the BTP—a political party that was born out of the Bhilistan Tiger Sena movement, which had been advocating for a separate tribal state of Bhilistan from parts of Maharashtra and Gujarat.

Mahesh floated the BTP after the JD(U) split in 2017, and the faction led by Sharad Yadav—who the Vasavas are close to—lost its petition, staking claim to the election symbol of the party. He simultaneously registered BTP with the Election Commission.

Although the decisions of the BTP are governed by the word of its patriarch Chhotubhai, it is Mahesh who has been meeting leaders of other parties for possible alliances. In April this year, Mahesh travelled to New Delhi to meet AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal for a proposed alliance in Gujarat. Afterwards in May, Kejriwal visited the Vasavas’ residence in Chanderiya of Bharuch, where the two parties announced an alliance. This was later called-off by the Vasavas, citing “sidelining” and “cheating” by AAP, which has fielded at least two former BTP leaders from both the tribal Assembly seats in Narmada.

Previously, Mahesh was instrumental in forging an alliance with AIMIM for the local body polls, which had turned detrimental for the party. While Mahesh is going ahead with the BTP contesting the polls alone, the party is yet to announce any candidates. In an attempt to expand the BTP’s footprint across the country, he has been extensively campaigning in various elections in Rajasthan—where the party has two MLAs—and also in tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

Just a couple of weeks before calling off the alliance with AAP, Mahesh, in his capacity as an MLA, had shared the dais with Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, at an event of the tribal welfare and forest department in Dediapada.

Mahesh, a farmer, is a school passout. He began his political career as a member of the Bharuch district panchayat in 1996, which he contested on a JD(U) ticket. Five years later, in 2002, he contested the 2002 Gujarat Assembly polls from Dediapada and won with 38,665 votes, leaving behind candidates of the BJP, the Congress and the NCP. Mahesh subsequently lost the 2007 election to Congress’s Amarsinh Vasava by a margin of 22,379 votes. In 2012, the Dediapada seat was bagged by BJP’s Motilal Vasava by over 56,000 votes, leaving JD(U)’s Mahesh behind.

As a candidate of the Congress-BTP alliance in 2017, Mahesh came back to defeat Motilal Vasava of the BJP for the Dediapada Assembly seat by 21,751 votes, and earned his second term as MLA. Presently, he is also the vice-chairman of Bharuch Dudhdhara dairy, which has a BJP-majority board.

Mahesh has 24 criminal cases registered against him since 1991. Of these, he and his two brothers were convicted and sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment in an attempt-to-murder case by the Ankleshwar court in 2016, despite the victim turning hostile during the trial. However, the Gujarat High Court granted Mahesh bail later the same year. An appeal against the conviction is still pending before the HC.

While Mahesh continues to enjoy significant local on-ground support in Bharuch and Narmada districts, there is cause for worry as there is no BTP-Congress alliance as in 2017, while the BJP and AAP are ready to field candidates from Dediapada. Although the BTP leader maintains that the BJP’s success in the February 2021 local body polls is due to “tampered EVM machines”, it can’t be ignored that in Dediapada taluka panchayat, where the JD(U) held 12 seats till 2015, the BTP came down to two in 2021, notwithstanding the fact that the BTP chief is the Dediapada MLA.