TRIBAL CM WHO WEARS HINDUTVA ON HIS SLEEVES

THE unassuming appearance with a childlike chubbiness is a deception.

-  SN AGRAGAMI

What hides behind is a man indomitable. A man who lives with the masses and fights for their cause with dogged determination. But, above all, a tribal who wears Hindutva on his sleeves. This is how one of his one-time close acquaintances describes Mohan Charan Majhi, the first BJP chief minister of Odisha.

Majhi, however, is the continuation of a larger Modi project across states where BJP is elected to power dark horse who is the message, the medium and the implementer. In recent years and during the just concluded general elections, the Opposition have made an aggressive push to draw a distinction between Adivasis and Hindus and gone to the extent of demanding an independent religious code for tribals in the Census. Majhi is not only BJP's biggest response to such contentions but also a strategic manoeuvre.