The BJP’s landslide victory in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly election on Sunday proved wrong speculation that had done the rounds in the run-up to what was described as a “lost election” for the party due to an over 18-year-long “anti-incumbency”.
In contrast, the results in which it bagged 163 of 230 seats of the State show that the BJP fights all elections to win, with preparedness to turn difficult situations in its favour.
The BJP had released its first list of 39 candidates on August 17, exactly three months before the November 17 polls. The party had said that the move was aimed at giving the candidates sufficient time to work in their areas and fix any shortcomings.
The party won 26 of these seats, while the Congress could only retain 13. Of these 39 seats, 13 are Scheduled Tribe (ST) reserved and seven Scheduled Caste (SC) reserved constituencies. The BJP managed to win seven ST (reserved) and four SC (reserved) seats, many of them falling in the Congress stronghold of the Mahakoshal region.
The 39 seats were a part of the 103 ‘Akanshi Vidhan Sabhas’ (ambitious Assembly seats) designated by the party, which it had lost in the 2018 Assembly election or in the 2020 bypolls.
A senior party insider told The Hindu that the decision was taken after an extensive review exercise conducted on these seats before the decision of early announcement of candidates. The party had released its second list of 39 seats on September 25, which again contained several of these 103 ‘Akanshi Vidhan Sabhas’ seats.
“Once the party had made a list of 103 seats that we lost in 2018 and 2020 and marked them as Akanshi Vidhan Sabhas, various Members of Parliament were assigned two-three seats each to visit them and find out the reasons for the party’s loss. Then, various senior leaders also went there to analyse the issues and what can be done to resolve them,” the party insider said.
The source said two sets of leaders submitted their feedback reports to the party, suggesting early fielding of candidates.
“In the reports, the leaders claimed that the move would allow the candidates proper time to prepare the ground, meet and connect with people, and do away with any anger among any groups of people,” he said.
Another State BJP leader said that the candidates, after the announcement, were handed a list of tasks to undertake and people to meet in their respective constituencies.
“They were given a single point agenda. Meet influential people, speak with those who are angry a few times at least, and reach out to the beneficiaries of the Central and State government schemes,” he said.
The candidates had also been advised to work on the caste equations in their areas, focus on rural and urban issues separately, and even take part in religious events.
“All in all, they had been clearly told to stay active in the area throughout,” the leader added.
The two leaders also claimed that even though political observers had speculated a close fight between the BJP and the Congress, the party was confident of crossing the 150 mark based on its analysis.
“Only this kind of preparation helped us beat the Congress. They kept doing surveys but cannot even imagine executing their strategies like this,” one of the two leaders said.
The leader, however, admitted that the party was trailing behind Congress about six-eight months before the election. “But we chose to act and continue working to fix our problems,” he said.
