Raman Singh is the longest-serving chief minister from the BJP in any state. He has been chief minister of Chhattisgarh for even longer than the time Narendra Modi held the reins in Gujarat. Raman's rise can be arguably attributed to his nurturing by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, but ironically, his next contender for an assembly seat has a connection with the BJP's first prime minister!
While Modi held the position of Gujarat chief minister for 12 years and seven months, Raman continues to be Chhattisgarh Chief Minister since December 7, 2003, when he took oath. In December, Raman will complete a full 15 years as chief minister of Chhattisgarh, a record for any BJP leader. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan comes second, having been in office for 13 years.
An upper caste Thakur leader and an ayurvedic doctor by profession, the rise of Raman in a state with 32 per cent tribal population, 12 per cent scheduled castes and 49 per cent OBCs is more like a miracle.
Raman's rise inside the politics of the BJP, too, is nothing short of a miracle.
Born in 1952, Raman, after pursuing a degree in ayurveda from Government Ayurvedic College at Raipur, started a small dispensary in his home town of Kawardha. Along with his medical practice, Raman joined the youth wing of the Jan Sangh (the previous avatar of the BJP) in 1976. In 1983, he became an elected member of Kawardha Municipality.
In 1990, when the first BJP government was formed in Madhya Pradesh (Chhattisgarh was then part of Madhya Pradesh), Raman was elected MLA from Kawardha on a BJP ticket. In 1993, he was again elected from Kawardha as MLA. However, five years later, in 1998, he lost the assembly elections to Yogeshwar Raj Singh, the scion of the Kawardha royal family, by a huge margin of over 15,000 votes.
The defeat of Raman Singh in the 1998 polls was attributed to the decision of then Congress chief minister Digvijaya Singh to create Kawardha as a separate district from Rajnandgaon. Since the people of Kawardha were happy with the creation of a new district, they supported the Congress and Raman lost.
Ironically, this legendary defeat later turned out to be the greatest turning point in the political career of Raman. Dejected after the defeat in the 1998 assembly polls, when the docile doctor was sitting idle in his dispensary, the BJP offered him a ticket to contest the Lok Sabha polls from Rajnandgaon parliamentary seat against Congress veteran Motilal Vora.
Vora, a Congress stalwart had been chief minister of Madhya Pradesh twice and governor of Uttar Pradesh. He was sitting MP from Rajnandgaon in the polls held in 1998. Raman Singh was reluctant to contest the Parliamentary polls, fearing imminent defeat against a Congress stalwart, but it was his mentor, Lakhiram Agarwal, who insisted that he contest.
Agarwal was a legendary BJP leader who helped the saffron party gain roots in the Chhattisgarh region. To the shock of many and to his own surprise, Raman defeated Vora by a margin of little over 20,000 votes in the 1999 Lok Sabha polls.
Raman became a hero overnight. He was hailed by BJP leader and then prime minister Vajpayee as a “giant killer”. Vajpayee promoted Raman to exceptional heights and made him minister of state for commerce in the Union Cabinet. For the next three years, Raman was in Central politics, but when Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in 2000, he was tipped to become the BJP's state leader.
In November 2003, when elections to the Chhattisgarh assembly were held, the BJP unit in the state was a divided lot with the likes of Dileep Singh Judeo, Brijmohan Agarwal, tribal leader Nandkumar Sai and backward leader Ramesh Bais fighting for the top post in the party. However, the BJP high command decided in favour of Raman, who was acceptable to all factions.
Raman led the BJP to victory in the 2003 polls against the formidable Ajit Jogi of the Congress. The BJP’s win was facilitated by dissident Congress leader, Vidyacharan Shukla, who joined Sharad Pawar’s NCP and fielded candidates to divide the votes of the Congress.
Against all odds, Raman became chief minister in the state where population of his caste was barely three per cent. Chhattisgarh had predominately been a Congress bastion until then. When it was part of Madhya Pradesh before November 2000, every time Congress formed the government, it was because the majority of its MLAs got elected from the Chhattisgarh region.
However, in the last 15 years, the BJP has been ruling Chhattisgarh with a comfortable majority, thanks to the populist policies of Raman as CM and infighting among the Congress, which was largely divided into pro- and anti-Jogi factions.
As CM, Raman grabbed the opportunity and started populist schemes like 1 kg of rice for rs 1 to poor families and free distribution of milch cows to Adivasi families. His populism paid off.
After five years as CM, in 2008, Raman was re-elected. During this period, he was embroiled in controversies on the personal front with allegations against his wife in a paddy scam and his son, Abhishek Singh, being linked to the Panama Papers. However, Raman escaped 'unhurt' by the allegations, leading the BJP to another victory in the 2013 assembly polls.
He made Chhattisgarh a power hub and sparked industrial growth in a state that was otherwise backward. Bogged down by the regular spells of Naxalite violence, Raman kept the poor people of Chhattisgarh on his side by announcing populist schemes for every section of society.
In between, he made Abhishek contest the Lok Sabha polls from Rajnandgaon, which he won. Raman also shifted his assembly constituency in 2008 from Kawardha to Rajnandgaon, which is near to Raipur.
Having represented Rajnandgaon twice, Raman is once again contesting from the seat. Sensing anti-incumbency and the improved performance of the Congress in the last elections, this time, Raman Singh is leaving no stone unturned. He invited Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on the day of filing of nomination on Tuesday. On that day, Raman touched the feet of Adityanath, who is 20 years younger than him.
Initially, Jogi, who had formed his own outfit after falling out with the Congress, had said that he would contest elections against Raman Singh, but at the last moment, news of him dithering has led to rumours of Jogi reaching an understanding with the BJP chief minister. On the contrary, the Congress has fielded one of its top leaders, Karuna Shukla, against Raman. Incidentally, Karuna happens to be the niece of Vajpayee. She defected to the Congress from the BJP before 2013 polls when she was denied a ticket.
Raman is contesting for the third time from Rajnandgaon assembly seat to form a BJP government for the fourth time in the state. It remains to be seen whether the Thakur leader in the tribal state will continue to be chief minister for a 16th straight year or pave the way for the return of the Congress.
The Congress, which was placed quite well before the pre-poll alliance of Ajit Jogi and Mayawati’s BSP, is now finding itself in a tough battle in a three-cornered fight. The history of Chhattisgarh says that a three-cornered battle has always benefited the BJP.
Raman Singh, it seems, is a man destined for a better fortune compared with his rivals inside and outside the BJP, given the presence of Ajit Jogi as a third force in Chhattisgarh.
