Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan exudes confidence that his government, while facing local anti-incumbency, will be able to deal with it by making changes to the candidate list and a campaign focused on development and welfare programmes.
Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Chouhan, Chief Minister for nearly 18 years, said “every election is a challenge, and there is always some amount of local anti-incumbency, the solution to that is those who have too much anti-incumbency against them be removed. This is not an indiscriminate change in candidates, but after due assessment.”
He added that he was “confident” that he would be able to overcome any anti-incumbency because of the work of his government. He detailed that the State under him had seen an unprecedented increase in land under irrigation from 7.5 lakh hectares to over 47 lakh hectares now with a further push to take this number to 65 lakh hectares. “Apart from this, our focus on women’s empowerment, via Ladli Laxmi and now the Ladli Behena [income support of ₹1,000 per month to women between the ages of 23-60] along with our skilling programme for youth ‘seekho kamao’ [learn and earn] where we give ₹8,000-10,000 per youth as they work in various establishments to learn employable skills is an important intervention,” he said.
