A battle of wits between ‘Mama’ and ‘Jai-Veeru’

If politics works through symbolism and messaging, then the importance of the two Madhya Pradesh constituencies, where the BJP announced its candidates only after doing so for all other seats, was not lost on anyone.

The first, Vidisha, is home to Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, and the second, Guna, a pocket borough of the royal family of Scindias. The BJP leadership finally conceded the Vidisha to Chouhan’s close aide, who had lost the last election from here by more than 15,000 votes. On the other hand, Guna was allocated to an RSS nominee.

On both counts, it ended well for Chouhan, especially after getting short shrift from the party’s Delhi Durbar, which kept him waiting for almost two months while tickets of many sitting Lok Sabha MPs and several central ministers contesting the state assembly elections were declared.

While he waited on the sidelines, at an election meeting in Budhni, his assembly constituency, Chouhan asked voters whether he should contest the elections at all. In the next couple of lists released by the BJP high command, both the CM and some of his aides got the go-ahead to file their nominations.

The BJP had to repose faith in the chief minister although he appeared to have been sidelined in the initial stages as the party deputed a battery of Union ministers to oversee poll preparations in Madhya Pradesh. But Chouhan, who is known as ‘Mama’ (maternal uncle) of Madhya Pradesh politics, clawed back to reclaim his position as the first amongst equals. Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued an open appeal lauding Chouhan’s role in lifting the state out of the BIMARU category.

The course correction was perhaps triggered by a late realization that the BJP could not enter the electoral fray by undermining the achievements of its own government. Unlike Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, where the BJP is in opposition, in MP, it is seeking votes by showcasing the flagship schemes of the party and the leadership that has implemented them.

The biggest of the schemes is the ‘Laadli Behna Yojna’, which has provisions for a monthly dole at the rate of Rs 1,250 per month for more than 1.25 crore women. It covers more than half of the total women voters in the state. Just before the announcement of elections, the state cabinet also approved 35% reservation for women in government jobs including police.

Women constitute a separate constituency over and above caste affiliations, and, in MP, their participation in elections has had a more than twofold increase in the last 60 years to more than 74% in 2018, almost at par with the male voting percentage.

Chouhan’s second strength is the caste factor. Irrespective of the party in power, before 2003, MP was ruled by an upper-caste chief minister. Uma Bharti became the first backward CM in 2003 but lasted just less than a year. So did her successor Babulal Gaur. Thereafter, BJP leader Pramod Mahajan was instrumental in establishing Chouhan in Bhopal.

It took a while for Chouhan to find his feet amongst the old guards like Sunderlal Patwa, Kailash Joshi, and Bharti. Taking ginger steps, he was to soon entrench himself in the RSS echelons and the party rank and file. Amidst BJP’s nationwide experiments with backward politics, Chouhan too imbued a subtle tinge of identity politics around his persona. The OBCs constitute the biggest voting bloc in MP and, precisely for this reason, the BJP has been wary of disturbing the winning caste calculus in the state.

On the flip side, 18 years of one-party rule (except for a 13-month hiatus after the 2018 election loss) also burdens the incumbent with voter fatigue. The party has sought to negate the ennui by dropping almost a third of the sitting MLAs (in absolute terms, the figure is far less than more than four dozen MLAs who were denied tickets in 2018.)

The second challenge for the BJP is to placate and bring on board the young and the restless second rung of ticket aspirants. An extended period of political patronage engenders local and hyperlocal competition that tends to undercut the official nominees. Especially with Jyotiraditya Scindia on board, it is the BJP, and not the Congress, that faces the problem of plenty.

The problems notwithstanding, Chouhan has demonstrated his pan-state appeal. Love or hate him, it’s difficult to ignore him – both within and outside his party.