TONK: Ironies abound in this town, an unusual one in Rajasthan for its more Muslim townscape. The paradoxes run much deeper than the symbolism of the Congress fielding Sachin Pilot, its state chief and first non-Muslim candidate here, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fielding its lone Muslim face, Yunus Khan, minister in Vasundhara Raje Cabinet.
Thanks to the clash of these heavyweights, both outsiders, the excitement is palpable in the assembly seat, abutting the Aravali hills. Had anyone — from the civic authorities to any past member of the assembly — had any imagination or funding, Tonk could easily be turned into a lovely little nook of a holiday getaway. But, at present, the debate is over the Rs 2,000 crore that was apparently sanctioned to do up the roads.
Nothing of that is visible though — it’s dusty, derelict, dirty and waiting breathlessly for someone to put it back on the map of reckoning. A train to a future Tonk.
It’s around these dreams of a train line and also hope of the reopening of the small industrial units here that the ironies play out. The Muslim majority seat, with roughly 55,000 votes of the community, followed by 42,000 Scheduled Caste (SC) votes and 24,000 Gujjars, is witnessing what can be called the most unique contest and campaigning this election.
The Muslim community, particularly the youngsters, are rooting for a Hindu candidate. “Sachin bhaiyya aage badho, hum tumhare saath hai (Sachin, lead us, we are with you),” and the BJP karyakartas (workers), the now-famous panna pramukhs — Amit Shah’s foot soldiers — included, are campaigning for a Muslim candidate, “Tonk ka neta, tumhaara neta, Yunus Khan, Yunus Khan (Tonk’s leader is your leader)”.
“Hum toh kattar Congress hain. Hamara vote aur kisi ko nahi milne wala (We are diehard Congress supporters. Our vote will not go to anyone else),” say a group of Ansari boys, working for a tyre-cum-motor mechanic outlet. ‘Kattar’ (diehard) is not a word usually associated with the Congress or its supporters, but in Tonk, ironically, the word is being used for a rather public pledging of votes to Pilot against the BJP’s tactical fielding of Khan.
The owner of the outlet, Sharmaji, laughingly waves off the contention of ‘his boys’ to assert “nahin nahin Yunus Khan hi jeetega, inka sunna nahin (don’t listen to them, only Khan will win).”
BJP district general secretary Deepak Sangat, anchoring the campaign, is far more candid about the voters’ dilemma. “All our lives, we’ve worked and campaigned for a certain ideology, a worldview, to build the party here. Now, we are telling our people to take a different view, to vote differently, keeping 2019, Modiji and the seat of power in Jaipur in view. During the time of voting, our hearts will certainly tremble.
But so would theirs (Muslims). What do you think, they are not unhappy? Unka ticket cut ho gaya, Sachin Pilot bahar se aa gaye (an outsider has been foisted on them, instead of a Muslim).” Just as the Muslims in Tonk are seen to be pro-Congress, because the Nawab of Tonk had joined the party in the pre-Independence days, the Mahajans, particularly in the villages, are seen as the ruling party’s backbone.
From the Valmiki community, Sangat claims the BJP would make up for not getting more than 20,000 Muslim votes (the general consensus though, is that Khan won’t be able to break away more than 15,000, because of his last-minute entry into the fray) with the Dalit votes. “We’ve most of them in our fold, except for the ‘Berwars’ (the Jatavs). Our strategy is to get them also...”
As Khan mounts a door-to-door campaign in the villages, his party banks on its past record. The sitting BJP MLA, Ajit Singh Mehta, won by a margin of 35,000 votes in 2013.
But the Congress’s Rajeev Shukla, holding fort while Pilot campaigns in the rest of the state, brushes aside such calculations. He says the Gujjars (Sachin’s community) — plus “the Muslims, in fact most of the community, are solidly behind the Congress.”
A police officer, who did not want to be named, claims that “the Congress is being aided by the voters’ aspiration for change, plus the Pilot factor. However, it’s a tough contest. Not a walkover for either of the candidates.” One of the reasons: the rumour mill has it that Pilot was given the seat so as to tie him down in a bitter contest.
Well, one thing is beyond conjecture — there’s no communal tension in Tonk this time, because of the nature of the contest. Ironies never cease.