Bizarre blame game as India’s prime minister fails to see single tiger – on a tiger safari

‘I was so scared that I couldn’t even talk,’ says safari driver who is now coming under fire

PM Narendra Modi on safari in Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka, India (Narendra Modi / YouTube)

The director of a tiger reserve in India has defended his staff after a visit by prime minister Narendra Modi failed to spot any big cats.

The prime minister had travelled to Mysuru city at the weekend to take part in a commemorative event to mark 50 years of Project Tiger and – in theory – draw attention to the increasing population of tigers as shown by the latest five-yearly survey. According to these figures the number of tigers in the wild grew from 2,967 in 2018 to 3,167 by the end of last year.

Yet Mr Modi saw nothing more than pawprints during his two-hour safari in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve in Karnataka on Sunday.

Local media reports said members of Mr Modi’s ruling BJP party, as well as senior officials in the federal forest department, complained to the reserve’s management and attempted to put the blame on the driver of the vehicle, suggesting he should have changed the route of the safari if there were no tiger sightings.

And images widely circulated on social media purported to show that the registration of the 29-year-old driver Madhusudhan’s vehicle had been cancelled in the wake of the criticism. This was denied by the reserve’s director.

During Mr Modi’s two-hour drive inside the core area of the Bandipur reserve – which is spread over an area of 912 sq km – he saw large herds of elephants, a number of gaurs (Indian bison), spotted deer and sambar, a deer native to the Indian subcontinent.

Senior forest officials from the Bandipur Tiger Reserve stood up for Madhusudhan and said “he did his job”. They claimed he “took the route which was finalised” by the PM’s security staff beforehand.

The reserve’s director Ramesh Kumar was quoted as saying that “in the name of high security, vehicles repeatedly went on the selected route, hampering the sightings”.

Rangers said the security staff, including the prime minister’s Special Protection Group (SPG) and the local police, were “camping” on the identified route for days before Mr Modi’s arrival, during which tigers were sighted.

Park officials had to request them to leave the route on Saturday night to give the animals a chance to return.

The Hindu cited unidentified sources as saying that the prime minister expressed happiness at the wildlife sightings and “joked” at the SPG that their security drills may have perhaps forced the tigers and leopards to retreat.

But other reports said he scolded the security team.

“Sightings in forests is just luck. When I did the trial run on Friday and Saturday for the security teams, two tigers were sighted,” Madhusudhan told The New Indian Express.

“In fact, the PM saw fresh tiger pugmarks, but just missed the tiger. I followed the route as my boss told me. I was so scared that I couldn’t even talk to the PM. All my focus and attention was on his safety.”

Mr Modi’s trip was scheduled to promote the release of the latest data showing India is now home to around 75 per cent of the world’s tigers in the wild. The latest census figures mean that the number of tigers in the country has almost doubled in the last 17 years, from just 1,411 back in 2006.

“The success of Project Tiger is a matter of pride not only for India but also for the world,” Mr Modi said.