Bhopal: Admittedly, even the Congress had not anticipated such a happy tiding in its favour when the campaigning got underway in March amid a cacophonous BJP triumphalism about a clean sweep in all 29 seats in Madhya Pradesh.
The beginning of campaigning provided a picture of virtually no contest between a cocky BJP and a demoralised Congress. Mass exodus from the opposition rank to the ruling party coupled with a glaringly uneven level of resources between the main rivals further deepened the perception of a one-sided electoral race.
Perception changed
The two phases of the election on April 19 and April 26 for a total of 16 seats dramatically changed the perception. Unexpectedly low voting (a drop of 6% in the first and 8% in the second) rattled the BJP as much as it rejuvenated the Congress.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
More worryingly for the BJP, woman turnout plunged an average 11% across the two phases. A big majority of women, particularly the beneficiaries of the Madhya Pradesh government’s flagship Ladli Behana Yojana, are believed to be an ardent support base for the ruling party. Their solid backing is thought to be the main reason behind the BJP’s stunning victory in the November 2023 assembly election.
Low voting haunts the BJP
As the state is set to vote for the remaining 16 seats in the next two phases (May 7 and May 13), the spectre of low voting is haunting the BJP while the Congress is foreseeing a happy augury for itself in such a prospect.
The BJP has reasoned away the low voting as the severely attenuated Congress’s inability to bring its supporters to the polling booths. The rival, on the other hand, claims it is the result of the voters’ disillusionment with the Modi government’s “hollow promises”.
Scorching summer is also being cited as a probable reason for the plunge in the voting but that doesn’t sound credible enough. Voters in the state had braved more severe heatwaves in the previous elections to make it to the polling booths.
Also read: What Voters’ Lack of Interest in Phase 1 Means for Narendra Modi
Caste factor dominates poll
However, low voting is not a lone factor that has kindled the Congress’s optimism and concomitantly caused furrows on the BJP’s brows.
A combination of factors that had gotten overwhelmed in the BJP’s initial battle cries of ‘Modi ki guarantees’ and ‘Lord Rama’s blessings’ have surfaced as the electioneering has intensified. Caste-equation is the foremost factor. Unlike Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, caste has not been an overriding factor or a main determinant in Madhya Pradesh elections in the last two decades. By projecting as chief ministers such leaders as Uma Bharti, Babulal Gaur and Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the BJP ensured that the OBCs in the state are subsumed in the broader canopy of Hindutva.
But in the ongoing election, neither the Sadhvi nor Chouhan is on the forefront. Uma is completely marginalised, though she shared the dais with Jyotiraditya Scindia in Guna on the personal invitation of the Union civil aviation minister. Former chief minister Chouhan has barely come out of the Vidisha seat which sent him to Lok Sabha five times between 1991 and 2004.
Chief minister Mohan Yadav, though an OBC, has very limited personal appeal. Before being anointed chief minister in December last year, Yadav was known as a district-level leader in his home town Ujjain. Anyway, Yadavs with an 8% population scattered across the state are not a determining factor in any seat.
The absence of mass leaders like Uma Bharti and Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the campaign has caused the revival of caste fault lines across the OBCs in the state. The resurfacing of division along caste lines appears to be harming the BJP, especially in the seats where the Congress managed to forge better caste combinations in the selection of its candidates.
Although the impact of the Congress’s promise to hold a caste-based census is not visible on the surface, its undercurrent is being felt across the state.
Also read: Dwindling Voter Turnout Shows Discontent and Political Apathy in 2nd Phase of Lok Sabha Polls
Absence of Modi wave
In the 2019 Lok Sabha election the Modi wave was unmistakably strong and visible. No other narrative except patriotic fervour swept the poll held in the aftermath of the Indian Air Force’s Balakot air strike to kill Pakistan-based terrorists. This time round, BJP candidates’ performance and behaviour appear to be in closer public scrutiny than the Modi government’s achievements and promises.
The BJP, of course, has been persistently invoking Narendra Modi as the sole guarantor for a strong and developed India. It is not offering to the voters anything else beyond Modi ki guarantees. All posters/banners and hoardings have only the Prime Minister.
But the alacrity with which the voters lapped up the Prime Minister’s promises in the previous elections is remarkably subdued. His election meetings and roadshows in Jabalpur, Bhopal and elsewhere in the state failed to whip up the kind of mass hysteria that had greeted his election speeches in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.
By all accounts, the ongoing election is the most lacklustre one ever witnessed in Madhya Pradesh with the usual festive atmosphere sorely missing.
Resentment in hardcore workers
The BJP has always prided itself on its gigantic organisation powered by dedicated workers, mostly drawn from the RSS. These hardcore workers feel cheated after the party launched an open-arm policy for an indiscriminate entry of Congress leaders and workers. BJP leaders have claimed to have given entry to nearly five lakh defectors from the Congress including a former Union minister, four former MPs, 15 former MLAs and two sitting lawmakers.
Although the BJP leadership has realised the simmering resentment in the cadres over admitting defectors, it still does not seem averse to closing the floodgate for outsiders.
The hunger for weakening the Congress through shenanigans is still too much to resist in the party as was evident in the manner in which the Congress candidate for the Indore seat Akshay Kanti Bam was forced to withdraw on April 29. Two days later, sitting Congress MLA and poll in-charge for Morena seat Ram Niwas Rawat was admitted to the BJP in the presence of chief minister Mohan Yadav.
State BJP leaders are trying to reassure the cadres that defectors will not be allowed to harm the political interest of the old guards but the assurance has failed to put a lid on resentful murmurs in the party about likely problems in accommodation of neophytes in the existing party set up.
Political observers say that the large-scale defection has annoyed the dedicated BJP workers on one hand and afforded the Congress to play a victim card, on the other.
Congress is hopeful
The Congress is hopeful that the BJP’s strong arms tactics have generated public sympathy for the party and it will reflect in the poll outcome.
Indeed, the Congress has no option but to bank on people’s disgust over excesses being exhibited by the BJP, whether it is in the mass defection or poll expenditures or rampant misuse of official machinery.
Congress eyeing a dozen seats
At the start of the campaigning, the Congress had anticipated that it would consider itself lucky to win three or four seats including its Chhindwara bastion.
The low turnout and perceptibly rising support for its candidates have emboldened the party to stake a claim on eight seats. These include Chhindwara, Mandla, Rajgarh, Bhind, Morena, Dhar, Jhabua and Satna.
In four more seats, the Congress reckons itself in a tough fight against the BJP. They are Gwalior, Rewa, Sidhi and Balaghat.
Even in Bhopal, a BJP bastion, the Congress sees a glimmer of hope on account of the growing consolidation of Muslim and Kayasth votes in favour of its candidate Arun Shrivastava.
In each of these seats, the Congress optimism stems from the personal standing of its candidates rather than the party’s organisational strength.
In Chhindwara, Kamal Nath’s son Nakul Nath shored up his position after the initial damage to his prospects owing to the exodus that was brazenly engineered by the BJP state leadership at the behest of Amit Shah.
In Mandla, visible anger against Union minister Fagan Singh Kulaste and the popularity of his Congress opponent Omkar Singh Markam may have turned the tide against the BJP.
In Rajgarh, the septuagenarian Congress veteran Digvijay Singh has covered a lot of ground to impress the voters through gruelling foot-marches in the scorching summer across the constituency. His connectedness with voters in his traditional seat, to which he returned after 30 years, appears to be giving Digvijay Singh a distinct advantage against RSS-backed BJP candidate Rodmal Nagar. Voting in Rajgarh is slated on May 7.
In Bhind seat, Congress candidate Fool Singh Barraiya is a grassroots activist who is credited with having single-handedly built BSP cadres in the region when he was state president of the Mayawati’s outfit.
In Morena, the caste combination seems to have given the Congress an edge over the BJP. In Dhar, the leader of the opposition in the state assembly, Umang Singhar has put his prestige at stake for the party candidate and his popularity seems to be working in the tribal seat. Likewise, the adjacent Jhabua ( ST) seat is witnessing a keen contest between former Union Minister Kantilal Bhuria and his BJP opponent Anita Nagar.
In Satna, BJP’s Ganesh Singh is pitted against Congress candidate Siddharth Kushwaha. It is their second direct fight. In the assembly election, Kushwaha had defeated Ganesh Singh in the Satna seat by a considerable margin.
When the campaigning for the ongoing election began, state’s newspapers and TV channels had virtually written off the Congress as a distant runner in the one-sided race against the BJP. Now the media is forced to change its view. Phrases like keen contest, interesting duel, caste factor and voters apathy are eloquently figured in the election reporting of the state’s dozen-odd seats.
