Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's metamorphosis from plain "mama" (maternal uncle) the distributor of welfare goods and avuncular style to "bulldozer mama" (uncle with the bulldozer) is not sudden, although the bulldozing of residences of people alleged to have been involved in the communal fracas that ensued in Khargone district may look like it.
Ever since Mr. Chouhan's return to the Chief Minister's seat in 2020, after a section of the Congress's legislative party defected to the BJP led by Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, there has been a change in the rhetoric and style as well as governance of Mr. Chouhan.
Time was when Christmas was celebrated at the Chief Minister's residence in Shyamala hills in Bhopal, and the party's only Muslim woman candidate in the last Assembly polls, Fatima Siddiqui was escorted by Mr. Chouhan when she went to file nomination papers. Now the talk is more about anti-conversion law, and the liberal use of bulldozers to demolish properties of alleged perpetrators of crime (many from a particular community) in Sheopur, Raisen, Shahdol and Seoni, and now in Khargone in an action against communal violence there.
