How Gujarat AAP MLA Vasava walked out on bail to become a tribal hero

Forty-eight days after his arrest in an assault and extortion case, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Gujarat MLA and working president Chaitar Vasava walked out of the sub-jail at Rajpipla in Gujarat’s Narmada district last Thursday (February 1).

Vasava received a hero’s welcome from thousands of supporters outside Rajpipla jail. Along with his supporters, his second wife Varsha, his three children, AAP’s Gujarat chief Isudan Gadhvi, and AAP national joint secretary Gopal Italia also waited for him.

Hero’s welcome

The Narmada police had reportedly heightened security measures to prevent large gatherings of Vasava’s supporters to maintain peace in the district. However, despite the measures, thousands of supporters had gathered outside Rajpipla jail and broke through police barricades to reach Vasava. The tribals garlanded him, showered him with flower petals, and the area buzzed with slogans of “Dekho dekho adivasi sher aya” (Look, look, the tribal lion is here).

Later, his supporters organised a public reception for him at Movi Chowkdi in Netrang, Bharuch district. As per legal protocol, Vasava was expected to be deported shortly after his release, but this did not deter his supporters from gathering in unprecedented numbers to greet their leader.

The complaint

So, what made Vasava, a 35-year-old local leader, a tribal icon overnight — so much so that the AAP has named him its Lok Sabha candidate from Bharuch for the 2024 polls?

It all started in November, when the Dediapada police registered a case against Vasava, his first wife Shakuntala, his personal assistant, and nine other aides. The FIR was lodged on November 2 with charges of threatening forest department officials and firing in the air on October 30.

Gadhvi, however, alleged that the local police had filed a false FIR. “In the last week of October, local forest department officials visited the farms of two men in Dediapada taluka, Chaitar Vasava’s constituency. Claiming that the tribal farmers were tilling forest land illegally, the officials destroyed the standing cotton crop and asked the farmers to stop cultivating on forest land,” narrated Gujarat’s AAP chief.

“The farmers then sought the intervention of their MLA and produced documents that showed that they had been granted permission to cultivate the said land in 2009 and that they have been tilling it since then. The forest department officials came to Vasava’s house to discuss the issue and after checking the documents, accepted their mistake and paid Rs 30,000 as compensation to each farmer,” Gadhvi claimed.

However, “two days later, the local police turned the whole thing around and filed a completely false FIR accusing Vasava of firing in the air and threatening the forest officials”, he alleged.

Vasava managed to elude arrest for over a month before turning himself in on December 14, 2023, while simultaneously filing a bail application in the local court. However, in his absence, Shakuntala, his PA, and his nine aides were arrested, sparking mass protests across the tribal districts in central and south Gujarat.

Tribal hero

The Narmada District Sessions Court on January 22 granted the Dediapada MLA conditional bail that prohibits him from entering his home district Narmada and his constituency Dediapada.

But, Vasava decided to put off the execution of the bail surety and his release until Shakuntala and the others arrested in the case were also granted bail. The AAP leader also said he had decided to appeal in the Gujarat High Court against the bail order that prohibits him from entering his constituency until the end of the trial.

“The fact that he refused to execute his bail order unless his aides and wife were also granted bail garnered a lot of praise and support amongst local tribals," said Romel Sutaruya, a tribal rights activists based in Gujarat.

"Besides, he was arrested while trying to stop forest officials who had come to encroach upon tribal land. The tribals are always at daggers drawn with the forest officials on the issue of land. The cause and his subsequent arrest have made Vasava even more popular among locals within his constituency and beyond,” Romel Sutaruya added.

“The ruling BJP’s attempts to rein in Vasava has set off a wave of tribal protests in central Gujarat’s Chhota Udepur,” he further said.

Call for bandh

Noticeably, the AAP’s call for a bandh on November 4 to support Vasava received an unprecedented response from local shops and traders despite the local BJP leaders’ attempts to convince them otherwise. Following that, the party declared Vasava as its Lok Sabha candidate from Bharuch for the 2024 polls.

Incidentally, the protests did not die out on November 4. Multiple districts saw mass protests against Vasava’s “wrongful arrest” through November and December. Among the series of protests, only one was organized by the AAP, while the rest were led by local tribal rights organizations.

“My family and I were harassed as part of a political conspiracy. My wife Shakuntala has been in prison for the past three months. I accepted the bail conditions that have been put forth by the court. But in the days to come, we will approach the high court to appeal against some of the conditions of the bail,” Vasava said after his release.

Vasava is among the five AAP MLAs elected in the 2022 Gujarat Assembly elections. While many AAP leaders and an MLA, Bhupendra Bhayani, who represented the Visavadar constituency, have quit the party to join the BJP, Vasava remains the only known mass leader of the AAP in the state.

From leader’s aide to leader

The 35-year-old tribal leader was an aide of Chhotu Vasava, a larger-than-life tribal leader and seven-time MLA who until recently enjoyed unparalleled popularity in the tribal districts of Gujarat. He began his political career with the Bharatiya Tribal Party (BTP) formed by tribal leader and former MLA Mahesh Vasava in 2017. Mahesh is Chhotu Vasava’s son.

“After joining BTP, Chaitar Vasava became a close confidante and campaigned for Mahesh in the 2017 Assembly elections. In fact, he was largely credited for Mahesh’s victory from Dediapada,” said Manishi Jani, a Gujarat-based political analyst.

However, before the Gujarat Assembly polls in 2022, Vasava left BTP and joined the AAP, which was already looking to make inroads in Gujarat. His wives, Shakuntala and Varsha, who were earlier government employees, quit their jobs to support his political career. Vasava won the Dediapada seat with a huge margin.