Rising from the ground, the son of a farmer from Sehore, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s political career has witnessed a steady upward trajectory. Groomed by the RSS, he started out as a students union president before winning his first MLA election from Budhni in 1991. He then went on to represent Vidisha five times in a row as MP. In 2005, he was appointed State BJP chief and the same year in November he replaced Babulal Gaur as the CM.
While the BJP and the RSS are understood to be largely backing him, certain signs of civil strife have surfaced especially with Mr. Gaur, believed to be in the opposite camp, taking potshots at the CM recently for not keeping him in the loop on Vyapam. However, Mr. Gaur denies that he has an agenda against Mr. Chouhan and that his comments were “twisted” by the media. Without targeting anyone, Mr. Gaur says “the whole State machinery is to be blamed for the scam.” When asked if it included the CM, he remained evasive.
Known for his humble and soft-spoken persona, Mr. Chouhan, a Philosophy gold medalist, has carefully cultivated a clean image over the decade. His over-reliance on his popularity and corruption-free image have made him vulnerable this time as he faces serious charges.
Many say he mishandled the entire controversy bowing under pressure to call for a CBI probe. Mr. Chouhan, however, differs saying he relied on the law to take its course but when “the defamation campaign got too much” he was compelled to call for a CBI probe. “Too many lies were being spread. A CBI probe will remove all doubt. I am proud to call for a probe,” he says.
Mr. Chouhan has been especially embarrassed by the alleged transgressions and corruption charges against his wife Sadhna Singh and her brother over the years. Be it the dumper scam or the alleged illegal appointment through Vyapam of 19 constables from Gondia, her home district in Maharashtra, or alleged patronage to mining mafia Ms. Chouhan has been a controversial figure.
‘Achilles heel’Some BJP leaders even believe that in the public image she is Mr. Chouhan’s Achilles heel, an easy target for the Congress to embarrass him. “It is no secret that people consider her his weak link. They believe her to be involved in corruption but they can live with that. But it is hard for them to digest that Shivraj would be corrupt,” a BJP leader says. Mr. Chouhan, however, is quick to come to her defence calling the allegations a Congress ploy to use her as a soft target to malign his image.
After the initiation of the CBI probe, the BJP has begun an offensive to counter the allegations by the Congress, focusing its strategy on digging out cases from the Digvijaya Singh tenure and linking the genesis of the scam to the Congress rule. In a recent rally in Alirajpur, Mr. Chouhan called Mr. Singh a “born conspirator.” The sudden surfacing of the case of death under mysterious circumstances of Congress leader Sarla Mishra 18 years ago and the BJP’s demand for a CBI inquiry is a point. So is its campaign against Leader of Opposition Satyadev Katare for alleged disproportionate assets. Interestingly, the CM’s office is also distributing a 23-page booklet to debunk allegations on Vyapam. Mr. Chouhan is also planning a Swabhimaan Yatra across the State to counter allegations against him and publicise his achievements. Is this a sign of being on the defensive? “I will present my report card of the last decade, and my vision for coming years. Vyapam is not the main point here,” he says.
Mr. Chouhan says his focus from the outset has been improving the infrastructure of MP, once counted among the BIMARU States. “Road, water and electricity, these have been my focus,” he says. Among his top achievements, he considers the remarkably high growth rate of agriculture, around 22-24 percent, surge in power production from 4000 mega watt in 2005 to the present 15,000 mega watt and the increase in irrigated land from 7.5 lakh hectare to 36 lakh hectare. “That will come to 50 lakh hectare in the next three years,” he says.
However, what has brought him national accolades are schemes for women uplift such as organising mass marriages, supporting girls education and checking female infanticide. These initiatives have earned him the tag of “Mamaji” or maternal uncle, an image he has carefully developed over time. “It started with the girls and their mothers, now everybody calls me Mamaji,” Mr. Chouhan smiles.
In comparison to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Mr. Chouhan he is seen as soft and secular, as he often dons the skull cap in public and has prevented major communal violence. His detractors, however, say he has curbed the authority of institutions while centralising power, a manifestation of which was the Vyapam scam. “During the Congress rule there are stories galore how appointments would be made by scribbling orders on the cigarette pack by the CMs. I tried to make the procedure systematic and transparent, like introducing rag tags for police recruitment,” says Mr. Chouhan, who has presented himself as the whistleblower of the scam. “If I had to hide something, why would I order the STF to go deeper into the fraud? It was a question on my credibility. Back then [2013] the Congress and the media didn’t know. I exposed it,” he says.
Despite the enormity of the scam, the Congress has failed to take any electoral advantage of the situation, owing much to its own deficiencies and infighting, and a powerful PR campaign by the ruling party. Vyapam surfaced just before the 2013 Assembly elections but it could not prevent Mr. Chouhan from muscling his way to a hat trick securing 165 out of 230 seats. This was followed by the decimation of the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections and the perfect score of all 14 seats in the urban civic body elections in January-February. Now recently, the BJP regained the Garoth seat in a by-election. BJP leaders say Mr. Chouhan’s popularity is what keeps him floating. “He has little control over the bureaucracy. And that’s one reason why the Vyapam corruption got so big. He survives due to his popularity among the people,” a BJP leader says.
