It is a regular nondescript small-time Indian town, where life on the streets is all about neighbourhood gossip, children playing cricket and weekly haats. But in the last one year, Sagwara’s profile has suddenly changed — from being just another town, it became the town that loosened the Congress stronghold in the tribal belts of Rajasthan and gave the BJP hope. Less than a year ago, the by-election in Sagwara was being written off as a routine exercise which the Congress would win, just like they had in all the previous years. When the results were declared, there was a whoop of jubilation from the BJP camp, which had made its first inroads into the tribal belt. Kanakmal Katara was the man who gave the BJP hope in bleak times and his record of having lost thrice from Sagwara was all forgotten when he raked in the votes during the by-election. His reward: another chance to contest and win ‘‘with a bigger margin’’. Katara’s victory stunned the Congress, which was betting on the work done by its winning tribal leader Bhika Bhai and hoping that all the sympathy after his death would translate into victory for his son Surendra Bamania. It didn’t. The impact of the Sagwara verdict is visible in the way the two parties are gearing up for the big fight on December 1. On a nippy November morning, while the Congress and BJP struggled to stem the street-fighting that broke out after the list of candidates was released in Delhi, miles away in Sagwara, there was no trace of all the party politics. In fact, the Congress party office hasn’t opened since its by-election defeat and the BJP workers are all ‘‘out in the field’’. So there is no politicking on the streets of Sagwara three weeks before the polls, but the by-election is definitely on everyone’s mind. It was on BJP state president Vasundhara Raje’s mind when she chose to begin her Parivartan Yatra from this belt. At all her rallies in Dungarpur and Banswada, she harped on the by-election win, defining it as an indicator of change. And then last month, she dressed up in tribal finery to address a huge gathering at a tribal rally in Udaipur, all to woo them. ‘‘Last time the tribals spoke their mind. This time, I suppose both sides will try to woo them all over again,’’ says shopkeeper Anirudh Tobisa. ‘‘I have a bird’s-eye view of the goings on outside the BJP candidate’s house. And he is not leaving anything to chance.’’ Katara has rarely left the region since he won. Even Congress workers admit that Katara has spent a lot of time in the area, listening to people, visiting their homes, trying to solve their problems. ‘‘I may have lost many times but I have always been here, for the people,’’ says Katara, as he tries to juggle his schedule and be in time for a meeting in Nithawa village. ‘‘Since the ’90s I have been fighting elections here and, despite defeat, have been in constant touch with the public.’’ Katara is right when he says that the Congress hasn’t forgotten the Sagwara defeat. ‘‘We believe that the reason we lost was because of the voting machines,’’ Kansara says. ‘‘The BJP managed to convince people that they should press the first key on the board to switch on the voting machine and then cast their vote. People didn’t realise that when they pressed the first button, they had already cast their vote for the BJP.’’ Accordingly, the Congress has decided that the real challenge in and around Sagwara is to educate people about ‘‘correctly using electronic voting machines’’.
