Jogi fails to make a mark

The Chhattisgarh Assembly election results on Tuesday indicate that Ajit Jogi is neither the king nor the kingmaker in the state.

Jogi (72), the civil servant-turned-politician who came out of the Congress after around 30 years of association to form his own Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC), had said that he would be the king not just a kingmaker in his home state where he tied up with the Mayawati-led BSP.

However, the results show that Jogi, the wheelchair-bound politician, could not make much of a mark in the state where he is considered one of the biggest tribal leaders.

Jogi and the Congress have been not on good terms for the past few years and his clout in the state unit was wavering with the emergence of local leaders like Bhupesh Baghel and TS Singhdeo.

Local Congress leaders have been complaining that Jogi, the first chief minister of Chhattisgarh when it was formed in 2003, jeopardised party's chances in the past elections after his demands were not met in terms of candidates.

During the elections, he had indicated that he was open to working with the BJP but retracted after his ally Mayawati's intervention. His alliance with the BSP was seen as a coup against the Congress, which had been trying to settle a seat-sharing arrangement with the BSP.

The calculation was that the Schedule Caste-Schedule Tribe combine would be formidable in the elections but the majority of the SC/ST community members appeared to have put their weight behind the Congress.

Though his party or alliance could not manage to dent the Congress, Jogi had managed to keep the hold of Marwahi region from where his wife Renu (Kota) and daughter-in-law Richa (Akaltara) also fought. He also managed to wrest control of Marwahi seat from where he contested.