Union Minister Prahlad Patel is one of the seven BJP MPs (including three Union Ministers) in the fray in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly election. He speaks to Nistula Hebbar on the campaign thus far, and issues that are cropping up:
Q. There is a widespread perception that the BJP is hopelessly mired down by an 18-year anti-incumbency, and the sympathy factor for Congress after its 15-month-old government was pulled down in the State.
That is a perception that the Congress has tried to spread, while stating that they were so organised that they would release their first list of candidates six months in advance. Now see what has happened — it is the BJP that got its list out three months earlier, while the fight between Digvijaya Singh and Kamal Nath came out in the open after the Congress’s first list. They spoke of tearing off Digvijaya Singh and his son’s (Jaivardhan Singh) clothes after their first list. In the second list of the BJP, when the seven MPs candidature was announced, they raised the question of who will be Chief Minister, while they themselves are facing huge rebellion in the ranks.
But this can’t just be about Congress propaganda, surveys have also reflected it.
What the surveys haven’t been able to capture is that the BJP in Madhya Pradesh will be voted back on the strength of its programmes for women, for Gareeb Kalyan, and the third big factor in the State, tribals, and their welfare. The BJP government has done a lot of work with regard to PESA (Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act), of setting up hostels and educational institutions in these areas. I can say as per what I have seen, and by virtue of having been involved in that poll, that the BJP’s victory will be like the one in 2003.
What about the allegations that the BJP by asking seven MPs and party national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya to contest has tried to cut Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan down to size?
Four of us — myself, Shivraj Chouhan, Kailash Vijayvargiya and Narendra Singh Tomar — have been a team since 1986, are contemporaries without any rivalry between us. While I will be fighting Assembly polls for the first time, others have been ministers under Shivraj Chouhan in the State. Even now, I have no hesitation in claiming that Shivraj [Chouhan] is the most popular among us. The BJP has been operating under the idea of collective leadership in all the five States going into polls, therefore, its not like Madhya Pradesh has been singled out.
It is being said that among the seven MPs and one national general secretary fielded from the BJP, only you and Kailash Vijayvargiya have been able to campaign outside of their constituencies. So has the strategy of fielding MPs not worked?
As the polls draw nearer, I expect [Union Agriculture Minister] Narendra Singh Tomar and Faggan Singh Kulaste [Minister of State for Steel], to campaign widely, across constituencies from where they contesting.
Are you a contender for the Chief Minister’s post this time around?
This is a propaganda spread by the Congress, it is not how the BJP operates. I have been given a task by the party, and all of us seven MPs are doing only that.
