There is anger as well due to other broken promises. The road is mostly absent in these parts, and so is electricity, despite the much-hyped ‘Jyotigram’. The Narmada canal flows through the area but those who live here do not get any water from it. Despite all promises to the contrary, and some token programmes of distribution of pattas, tribal land is still being appropriated by the Forest Department.

While migration was always a significant phenomenon because of the lack of employment opportunities, it has become dramatically more large-scale and organised over the past few years. “It was never like it has been for the last 2-3 years. Now, 2-3 private luxury buses filled with migrant labour take off for Saurashtra and Kutch in the migration season. Entire villages are being emptied of their young men,” says Sonal Rathwa who teaches at the Adivasi Academy.

Of course, if the BJP did not deliver on promises of development, neither did the Congress in the long years when it was in power in the state. It is because of this reason perhaps that a cluster of 13 villages in Naswadi tehsil in this district has decided not to vote in this election. In these villages, there is no road and no teachers in the schools. The ill must be carried by friends and relatives to faraway hospitals.

But beneath the cynicism for politics and resentment against both political parties, the undercurrent in tribal Vadodara and the absence of a wave suggest that the BJP will find it tough to repeat 2002’s sweep of central Gujarat this time at the hustings.