Can Shivraj Singh Chouhan factor help BJP woo women voters in Lok Sabha too?

MADHYA PRADESH

‘MAMA KA GHAR’―the display board outside Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s house on the VIP Link Road in Bhopal and the hundreds of people waiting outside the gate say a lot about his reputation. He might have been denied a fourth term as chief minister by the BJP central leadership, but he continues to enjoy the trust of the people of Madhya Pradesh. And the BJP is banking on Chouhan, along with a visible pro-hindutva sentiment, to repeat a sweep in the state in the Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP could not have ignored the importance of the Chouhan factor, and that is why it gave him a ticket to the Lok Sabha elections. His welfare schemes as chief minister were largely responsible for its successive victories in the state. And Madhya Pradesh is probably the only BJP-dominated state where Modi is not the party’s main vote catcher.

Chouhan enjoys a huge following among women. “The game-changer was Laadli Behena scheme, under which about 1.24 crore women in the age bracket of 21-60 years were entitled to a monthly payment of Rs1,000. It was enhanced every year,” said veteran journalist and political analyst Rajesh Badal. It earned Chouhan the sobriquet ‘Mama’, or maternal uncle, and inspired some other chief ministers. That Chouhan has been given the ticket from his stronghold, Vidisha, and made one of the star campaigners in the state show how indispensable he is for the BJP to make a clean sweep of the 29 Lok Sabha seats. It won 28 in 2019.

The Congress, on the other hand, is a divided house, and is getting weakened by desertions. The only seat it won in 2019 was Chhindwara, by Kamal Nath’s son Nakul. It might be difficult for the grand old party to make any improvement, as the infighting between the Nath and Digvijaya Singh factions has not abated despite back-to-back poll debacles.

It was factional conflicts that cost the Congress the power it had managed to wrest back after ages in 2018, as the group led by Jyotiraditya Scindia switched to the BJP 15 months later. There were rumours that the Naths were also trying to join the BJP. Apparently, Scindia blocked it; he told the BJP leadership that he would return to the Congress if Nath was inducted.

The Naths’ diminished clout in the Congress was visible in the seat distribution this time―they got just one ticket, their traditional bastion of Chhindwara. It is said that Digvijaya is now calling the shots, especially after the exit of the veteran party leader Suresh Pachauri, who crossed over to the BJP in March. Digvijaya and Pachauri did not see eye to eye. “Digvijaya talks of sangharsh (struggle), but he has a track record of rarely holding the larger interest of the party above his own interests; his USP is lip service without any convictions,” said Pachauri.

The Congress leadership has not made any concerted effort to counter the BJP’s attempts to weaken the party by poaching its leaders. “During his visit to Bhopal in February, Amit Shah told BJP leaders to do everything under the sun to weaken the Congress at the grassroots level, not just the top state leaders but also the second and third line of the party across the state,” said political analyst Arun Dixit.

There was hope when young Jitendra Patwari was appointed state chief after the demoralising loss in the assembly elections in 2023. However, it seems Patwari is shackled by the powerful factions, and any turnaround for the party remains a distant dream.