In an election where its being said that there is a “fatigue factor” working against Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and his 18 year stay at the helm, folks in his Assembly constituency of Budhni insist that the only fatigue in question is Mr. Chouhan’s own physical exhaustion as he keeps to a punishing campaign schedule.
“We have told him he needn’t come back here after filing nomination papers for his polls, we will ensure he wins yet again,” says Mukesh Chouhan, a long time neighbour of Mr. Chouhan’s family from his village of Jait, in Budhni. “There is no fatigue, he is visiting at least 3-4 Assembly seats every day after having already touched almost all 230 seats during the Jan Ashirwad Yatra,” he adds.
Mr. Chouhan has not been projected as a Chief Ministerial face by the BJP under its “collective leadership” plank and the fielding of seven MPs with three Union Ministers among them as potential contenders for the top job if the BJP is re-elected, is in contrast to the BJP’s emphasis on Mr. Chouhan’s record in implementing welfare schemes.
There is chatter about Mr. Chouhan travelling across the state to campaign while other MPs nominated in these polls, with the exception of Union Minister Prahlad Patel being confined to their respective constituencies so far. Mr. Chouhan’s younger brother, Narendra Chouhan is hard at work meeting booth representatives at a small market town in Doba, in Budhni. “Even today, he [Mr. Chouhan] has a 41% approval rating as Chief Ministerial candidate,” he says. “Aap baaki sabhi Saansadon ko ek taraf kar do, aur Shivraj ko ek taraf, [All other MPs should be kept on one side to equate with Shivraj on the other],” he says.
He doesn’t make any other comment on the MPs and Ministers contesting Assembly polls, only adding that it was “the order of the high command” and that must have had a “good reason”.
Deepak Patel, hanging around Shahganj, another market spot in Budhni, insists that despite every effort to hide it “Shivraj Chouhan ka chehra hi CM ka chehra hai” [it is Shivraj Chouhan’s face that is the CM’s face]. In other parts of the State, Mr. Chouhan may be one of four faces on a campaign poster, alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP national president J.P. Nadda and State unit chief V.D. Sharma, but in Budhni he is the only face on posters and flexi boards.
All these comments reveal the paradox within the BJP’s larger campaign in Madhya Pradesh, that of trying to do without Shivraj Chouhan, while acknowledging that he is still the party’s most known face across Madhya Pradesh.
The collective leadership gambit was to cut the “fatigue factor” around Mr. Chouhan, and by confusing the issue of leadership energising pockets of the BJP cadre attached to various leaders to work hard for the party’s victory. “Narendra Singh Tomar in Dimani, Prahlad Patel in Narsingpur, Faggan Singh Kulaste from Niwas are all big leaders, with a good support base and cadre attached to them, by confusing the question of leadership the high command hoped that these cadre would get over an ennui with regard to the current state leadership,” said a senior office bearer in the BJP.
That has happened to an extent but it has also not prevented Mr. Chouhan from trying to garner centre stage in the party’s campaign as before. His big campaign plank is the women’s vote on the basis of the newly launched ‘Ladli Behena’ scheme of income support for stay at home women, an amount of up to ₹1,250 per month. Mr. Chouhan’s pitch, placing himself as an avuncular mama (maternal uncle), at various campaign events is that the scheme may be discontinued if the BJP is not voted back to power in the State.
Quite clearly, for Mr. Chouhan, the collective leadership gambit of the BJP’s high command may not have been a welcome signal, but it hasn’t meant that he is ready to walk into a saffron sunset anytime soon.
