Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Conflict between Gonds & Lambadas keeps political parties on tenterhooks

Adilabad: The long-drawn conflict between Adivasi Gonds and Lambada Banjaras over land and resources in Telangana, especially in the areas that fall under the Adilabad Lok Sabha constituency, is keeping the political parties on tenterhooks.

Adilabad is a reserved segment for the Scheduled Tribes (ST).

The Gond and Lambada communities, both recognised as Scheduled Tribes in the state, have been at odds over the distribution of government benefits and resources.

The Gonds claim the Lambadas have “unfairly cornered a disproportionate share” of jobs, particularly in the education sector, despite the Gonds making up a larger percentage of the population in Adilabad.

Not to take any chances this time, all three major parties in the Telugu state — the BJP, Congress and BRS— have fielded Gonds as their candidates. While the BJP has been striving to retain the seat, the Congress and BRS have been fiercely trying to wrest it from the saffron party.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, BJP’s Soyam Bapu Rao won from here.

The Congress has fielded Adivasi rights activist Atram Suguna while the BRS has picked Atram Sukku. The saffron party has replaced the sitting MP with Godam Nagesh, who switched side from the the BRS.

“They (Lambadas) have been a denotified tribe since 1976. They were given quota only in education, that too in plain areas. But they have been cornering all the reservation benefits given to Adivasis whether its government job or education sector. This has to stop,” said Godom Ganesh, state executive president of Adivasi Hakkula Porata Samithi (Tudum Debba), who resides at the Komaram Bheem Colony in Adilabad.

Ganesh said his organisation has been fighting for the rights of Gonds with the government which is responsible for enforcing laws, not with groups like Lambada Banjaras.

As per rough estimates, the Adilabad Lok Sabha segment has around 16.5 lakh voters, and among them, 4.5 lakh are tribals. According to the 2011 census, the erstwhile Adilabad districts had 2.5 lakh Adivasis and 1.5 lakh Lambadas.

BJP upper hand in 2023

In the last year’s Assembly polls, the BJP won Sirpur, Mudhole, Nirmal and Adilabad seats out of the seven segments that come under the Adilabad Lok Sabha constituency. The Congress won Khanapur, and the BRS won Asifabad and Boath.

“In the last Lok Sabha election, we all elected Soyam Bapu Rao of the BJP, as we all felt our voice needed to be heard in the parliament as well. However, after the election, he did not work for our rights at all. That’s why we have distanced ourselves from him, and that’s the reason the BJP may have replaced him this time,” a Gond Adivasi who wished to remain anonymous told DH. 

BJP fielded Bapu Rao in 2019 polls as he was seen as a vociferous supporter and activist of Adivasi rights. Now, the Congress has taken a similar route by fielding Suguna in the 2024 polls. People view Suguna as a powerful advocate of Adivasi rights.

Harmony affected

“Some business groups in the Adilabad tribal belt created the so-called conflict by exploiting the small rift between Adivasi Gonds and Lambadas. Otherwise both the communities co-lived and co-existed in harmony since long,” said Amar Singh Tilawat, who is a Special invitee to the BJP state executive and a former minister.

Tilawat, who is a leader of the All India Banjara Seva Sangh (AIBSS), said that when people vote for Prime Minister Narendra Modi they look beyond such rifts and conflicts.

In a show of strength on December 9, 2019, several thousand Adivasis took their fight to Delhi and held a protest at the Ram Lila Maidan to declassify the Lambada community from Telangana’s list of Scheduled Tribes.

Though the conflict has been there since long, the clashes between Adivasi Gonds and Lambadas have turned frequent since 2017 after an incident of vandalism at the tribal museum in Asifabad district.

While the conflict between the two groups has been a concern of political parties, they are also equally focusing on voters from non-tribal groups like minorities, OBCs, etc., who form around 12 lakh votes.

According to a senior journalist who has been covering the Gond-Lambada conflict for some time, “Gond votes may split because all three candidates come from the same community”.