Assembly Polls | BJP leadership is customising its approach

If in Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan will lead the party, in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh the strategy is not yet finalised

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national leadership’s decision to continue with Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan as the party’s face for the assembly polls scheduled for the year-end has come as a windfall for Chouhan.

Last year, Singh, an astute OBC leader, was removed as a member of the party’s powerful central parliamentary board along with Union Minister Nitin Gadkari who is believed to have long been out of favour with the party leadership. Then, this development was read as a signal that the 64-year-old Chouhan’s days as Chief Minister were numbered. He might have even resigned himself to a spot in the party's Margdarshak Mandal.

Since then, Chouhan, who was a decade back hailed as a prime ministerial candidate by then party patriarch LK Advani, was in a ‘perpetual panic mode’, as a political observer put it. Since then, Chouhan has been singing paeans of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to send the message that he was a loyalist to the core, and a disciplined member of the party.

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Due along with Madhya Pradesh are polls in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

For some time now, especially since the current party leadership took charge, the BJP has been experimenting with changing state leaderships shortly before the assembly polls. A short while back the BJP changed the Gujarat Cabinet with first-time MLAs shortly before the polls.

The BJP’s change of tack in Madhya Pradesh is indicative of the national leadership belatedly making amends in its strategy after being hit by the ‘Yeddy effect’ in poll-bound Karnataka. Chouhan is the immediate beneficiary.

A four-term Chief Minister since 2005 (except for a brief few months when the Congress was in power) Chouhan is a powerful and popular leader. The party’s national leadership seems to realised that side-lining him now could hurt the party’s electoral prospects.

Kailash Vijayvargiya, Narottam Mishra, and Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar — all hailing from Madhya Pradesh — are considered close to the BJP leadership.

With the elections in Karnataka becoming keener by the day, the BJP leadership, including Modi, is ensuring that former Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa is in good humour. Controversies aside, Yeddyurappa remains the BJP’s ‘face’ in the state, and there is a belated realisation that things could be difficult for the BJP if he is side-lined.

It is a known fact that the BJP’s national leadership tried to side-line Yeddyurappa and brought in current Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai; but Bommai has not been able to create the buzz Yeddyurappa has done over the years. The state BJP chief’s remarks that the polls are a fight between Tipu and Savarkar signal that the party is turning to polarisation in a desperate situation.

In Rajasthan, two-time Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje has been kept guessing so far despite being the most formidable BJP leader in the state. In a surprise move on March 23, the BJP national leadership brought in senior MP Chandra Prakash Joshi, who represents Chittorgarh, as the state BJP chief replacing Satish Poonia. Raje has welcomed Joshi’s appointment, though she has earlier given subtle signals that she is no pushover.

Joshi’s appointment has created a stir in party circles in Rajasthan as the 47-year-old is said to be the youngest state BJP chief. Rajasthan has had four Brahmin Chief Ministers since its formation about 70 years back. Joshi and Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw who also hails from the state are Brahmins. It is expected that the BJP will take a call on the Rajasthan leadership based on the results in Karnataka.

In Chhattisgarh, former Chief Minister Raman Singh who was at the helm for three terms appears to have lost favour with the leadership amid reports that the BJP is looking for fresh faces to lead the poll battle. In the last polls, the BJP had lost the tribal-dominated state badly in the wake of a resurgent BJP challenge.

As of now, the BJP’s strategy looks like one used extensively by the Congress over the years—let matters rest for now.

Sunil Gatade and Venkatesh Kesari are both senior journalists.