Meet the Vasavas: AAP Bharuch candidate’s frontline fighters are his two wives

AS FAR as support goes, Chaitar Vasava can’t ask for more. The tribal Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA, who is contesting from the Bharuch Lok Sabha seat and is not allowed to enter parts of the constituency under court orders, has his two wives working in perfect coordination to mount a challenge against his rival, six-time BJP MP Mansukh Vasava.

Bharuch is one of the two seats the Congress has set aside for its INDIA bloc partner AAP in Gujarat, even ignoring the claims of the children of its late influential leader from here, Ahmed Patel.

There are other Vasavas in the race as well, including Chaitar’s former mentor Chhotu Vasava’s younger son Dilip (Bharat Adivasi Party). Chhotu’s elder son, Mahesh, who was once Bharatiya Tribal Party president, is in the BJP now. The AIMIM has also declared its intention to contest from the seat.

The entry of Dilip Vasava is likely to hurt Chaitar. However, not if his wives Shakuntaka, 34, and Varsha, 30, both of whom were government officials before they resigned in the 2022 Assembly polls to give Chaitar’s poll bid a push, have their way.

In most tribal communities of Gujarat, polygamy is an accepted social practice; Scheduled Tribes are exempted from provisions of the Hindu Marriage Act. While Chaitar and Shakuntala got married 15 years ago, he and Varsha wed two years later. All of them, with their respective children, live together.

The threesome have been conscious about presenting a joint front long before the election heat started, with Varsha representing Chaitar at a rally in January at Netrang tehsil, which was attended by top AAP leaders Arvind Kejriwal and Bhagwant Mann. Chaitar and Shakuntala were in judicial custody at the time over an alleged case of assaulting forest officials,