The BJP went into Assembly polls in the three big Hindi-speaking States of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh on the basis of collective leadership, without any projection of a face to the party’s campaign, a look at ticket distribution and campaigning shows, however, that regional satraps like Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Vasundhara Raje and Raman Singh seem to have held their own.
In Madhya Pradesh, the BJP high command, aware of anti-incumbency within the party against Mr. Chouhan fielded seven Lok Sabha members and national general secretary Kailash Vijaywargiya in the Assembly polls. The message was of collective leadership and an open situation with regard to who will be Chief Minister if the BJP manages to win Madhya Pradesh. Chief Minister Mr. Chouhan’s seat was not even announced in the first list of candidates put out by the party. By the end of the campaign however, it was the Chouhan government’s “Laadli Behena” income support scheme for women that the party depended on as its main plank. From October 10 onwards, Mr. Chouhan also criss-crossed the State on his own, addressing more than 160 rallies, in addition to the 21 rallies under the Vikas Parv programme run by the party organisation in the run-up to the polls.
Still a talking point
In Rajasthan too, earlier candidate lists had not accounted for loyalists of former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, an oversight that was made up for later as surveys showed that the BJP, despite not projecting Ms. Raje, needed to have her onside for the polls, and pull together as a united front. Ms. Raje, maintaining a media silence (not having a single interview to any media outlet) has addressed 56 rallies in 23 days, many encompassing multiple seats. She is still a talking point, and a counterpoint to the Congress’s leadership pantheon. Many names for chief ministership are being discussed within the BJP, and it is assumed that if the party wins comfortably, say 120 seats or so, then the high command will have its way, if the party’s total hovers around 100 or a little above, then, Ms. Raje will make a comeback to the top post. Senior Rajasthan BJP leaders are putting faith in Raje loyalists being BJP loyalists, “sanghathan ke aadmi” (organisation men) once results are out.
In the case of Mr. Raman Singh, former Chief Minister of Chhattisagrh, the situation is one where the BJP at the national level took an almost somnolent approach in the five years between the last election to this one in terms of projecting a leadership. “The problem with the BJP in Chattisgarh is that even now, there is no recall of any face, other than Raman Singh as far as the party is concerned. Nobody was built up as a leader to take on Bhupesh Baghel,” said a senior office-bearer in Chhattisagrh BJP.
The test of any system is succession and transfer of power. The BJP high command in Delhi had hoped that the elections in three States would provide it enough space of competing interests and leadership to successfully organise the succession that it wants in these States, and it might still happen if electoral outcomes provide that space. The road to that outcome, however, remained a winding one through the long campaign season.
