Ominous portents for Chauhan,BJP in MP | N.D.Sharma

Published on 09-11-2007 In National

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Ominous portents for Chauhan,BJP in MP

The BJP candidate's defeat in the Lanji Assembly by-election in Balaghat district has jolted Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan out of his romantic dream, induced by the promises of Rs 1.21 lakh crore investments made at the Global Investors Summit late last month. (This, though, was not the first time that such an investors meet was held in the State and promises of investments of thousands of crores of rupees made.)

This is the second consecutive defeat of the BJP in an Assembly by-election, the first being at Shivpuri a few months back. Both the seats were held by the BJP. The Shivpuri defeat was, however, explained as a result of the intra-party squabbles. Yashodhara Raje Scindia, the younger daughter of the late BJP veteran Vijayaraje Scindia, had won from there and was inducted into the Cabinet by Chauhan. The seat fell vacant following her resignation after she was elected to Lok Sabha from Gwalior in a by-election. She had kept away (and so had most of her supporters) from the Assembly by-election, saying that she was not consulted in the selection of the party candidate for Shivpuri. Her estranged nephew and Congress member of Lok Sabha Jyotiraditya Scindia had, on the other hand, worked hard to ensure victory of the Congress candidate. (Shivpuri is part of the erstwhile Gwalior State.)

The Lanji defeat is particularly odious to Chauhan. A victory of the Congress candidate there would have been less painful. But the voters decided to elect a person who has all along fought for the cause of the people against the System, which has become an instrument of corruption, inefficiency and exploitation in the far-flung tribal areas. The victory of Kishore Samrite thus poses a direct challenge to Chauhan's claims of reaching out to the poor. Several cases have been registered against him and he has been in jail since January. Samrite was put forward by the Samajwadi Party.

According to Dr Sunilam, Samajwadi Party MLA from Betul district, a riot case was slapped on Samrite when he led the people to "loot" a PDS shop as the shop owner was diverting the rations, meant for the poor, into black market and complaints to the authorities had yielded no result. Another case was registered against him when he led the people's agitation against a contractor who was exploiting the poor and the authorities would not listen to them. This is the nature of cases against him, Sunilam says. The people of Lanji have reposed their confidence in Samrite for his readiness to take up the people's cause against the forces of exploitation which include the contractors, the traders and, of course, the government officials.

The Lanji by-election was necessitated by the death of former Revenue Minister Dilip Bhatere, who had won from there in 1990 as an independent (with the BJP support) and in 1993 and 2003 as the BJP candidate. His wife Dhareshwari Bhatere was fielded by the BJP in the by-election in the hope of getting sympathy vote, in addition to what the BJP considers its own vote bank. Chauhan had campaigned there vigorously as had done his colleagues in the government and the party. The people there were not prepared to listen to even Union Ministers, Kamal Nath, Suresh Pachauri and Kantilal Bhuria, and relegated Congress candidate Bhagvat Bhau Nagpure, the winner in 1998, to the third position where he could not even save his deposit.

Chauhan was simply bewildered at the Lanji outcome. First his minions tried to float the theory that it was a victory of the Naxalites. However, there were no buyers. Moreover, it raised the awkward question as to how the people who had been supporting the BJP almost all these years had become Naxalites during the three and a half years of the BJP regime. A visibly subdued Chauhan has since been quoting less from his favourite topics in the Hindu mythology and talking more about the need for redressing the people's grievances and also exhorting the party MLAs to keep in constant touch with the grassroots workers.

Within days of the Lanji humiliation, Chief Minister Chauhan and State BJP president Narendra Singh Tomar welcomed State Bharatiya Jana Shakti president Raghunandan Sharma back into the party, disregarding his lofty contempt of the present government and the organisational set-up. A dedicated RSS/Jana Sangh/BJP activist all his life, Sharma was vice-president of the State BJP. As BJP vice-president, he had expressed his anguish over the rot in the party and the government in his missives to party leaders. He had released his letters to the media before throwing his lot with Uma Bharati when she formed her Bharatiya Jana Shakti on April 30 last year.

What Sharma had observed then has not lost relevance today. He had written to then State BJP president Kailash Joshi: "The people who have nothing to do with the organisation or the party office are misusing the party resources, and also misusing the government machinery." He then wrote that veteran party leaders and party office-bearers were not being included in the decision–making process. "Even you, as the State party president, are depending (for all decisions) on some one who is considered bigger than even the president. This is not in the interest of the organisation. The division level senior party leaders and office-bearers are feeling helpless and have been left only to follow the decisions. It appears the organisation will soon become devoid of popular leaders and lacking in self-confidence."

The atmosphere in the government, Sharma had stated at another place, was also disappointing. "The secretaries are not listening to the ministers. It appears that the bureaucracy is running the government. The ministers are not sitting in the secretariat, either to hide their weakness or because of their incapacity. Party workers run around for months but the ministers are not available. As the ministers have no control over the officers, the latter just don't care for the ministers' directions."

The then BJP vice-president had stressed the need for urgently weeding out corrupt elements from the staff of ministers "as the first stink of corruption emanates from there. Corruption is rampant in the government from top to the bottom. The message that was expected to go to the people with the change of power is not there."

Whatever compulsions or inducements there may have been for Sharma to return to the BJP, he has not claimed that the character of the government or the party organisation has changed during his 18-month absence.

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