Chhattisgarh: Rebel belligerence gives BJP and Cong the scare

By Parivesh Mishra Raipur: As the political parties in Chhattisgarh cautiously step ahead into the election arena, they are faced with the task of dealing with the increasingly belligerent and determinedly defiant among those left out of the candidates’ lists as well as some of those who figure in it. The aggression among ticket seekers was never so marked and the dissension in political parties was never so strong in elections in the past. Even before the last date of nominations was over, the supporters of Brij Mohan Agarwal and Kiranmayi Nayak, the BJP and Congress candidates respectively from Raipur South, clashed violently in front of the TV cameras. The leaders with their supporters were invited by a TV channel for a live show. Nayak referred to the Jhaliamari incidence where young girls were raped for days in a residential tribal girls’ school early this year (three of the accused were sentenced to life imprisonment only yesterday by a fast track court). The Home Minister of the state Nanki Ram Kanwar, a media darling for his penchant for shooting off unusual quotes, had famously attributed the Jhaliamari case to the “wrong configuration of stars” at that time. [caption id=“attachment_1208289” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] Referring to this comment during the debate, Nayak used the term “nikamma” for the minister which was objected to by Agrawal. He thereafter not only walked away from the programme, but on his cue, viewed on the TV, his supporters started throwing chairs and a free-for-all started. The police intervened and got the live telecast stopped. The participants, mainly the Congress supporters then headed with bleeding heads to the police station. To keep the temper of the party worker under control would be an additional problem for the leadership of both the parties which has so far been running around the state firefighting the revolts. It all started with the announcements of the names of contestants. The Congress bravely issued its first list well over a week ahead of the nomination for the first round. It proved to be a recipe of instant protests. Protesters from places like Rajnandgaon and Dongargarh, which have a better connectivity with Raipur, marched in. A majority of the seats, however, were in the Bastar region and so the dissatisfaction failed to exhibit itself on the roads of the capital. This helped the party in a way as most of the fizz subsided with the time. But some revolts did fructify in goodbyes of important leaders like in Kandagaon and Bijapur. The Congress’s early first list came with a whiff of fresh air and new faces and put pressure on the BJP to reciprocate. It lost precious time in rejigging and by the time its first list was announced, BJP was forced to expand it to include names for the second-phase seats — beyond Bastar and closer to the scene of action – Raipur. Hoard of supporters of the ticket-hopefuls from areas close to, and SUV-loads from the plains of Mahanadi descended on the party’s headquarters ‘Ekatm Parisar’. In faraway North Sajguja and Jashpur, the tribals simply came out and gathered in thousands in support of Ganesh Ram Bhagat, the ex-minister in Raman Singh’s first term. He was not the only tribal stalwart to be refused ticket. Nand Kumar Sai and Vishnu Sai – both are senior parliamentarians and both have been presidents of the party’s state unit. Both of them had tried hard for tickets and are not amused with the refusal. Ganesh Ram is now fighting as an Independent from Jashpur. The Sais are the grumpy spectators in adjoining constituencies. Serious revolts for BJP are not confined to North. Mahasamund, Dhamtari and Khujji are some of the places where the leaders have failed to prevent filing of nominations by the dissidents. The Congress has its own list of trouble spots though it is short in comparison. In their subsequent lists both the parties dropped the idea of showing any bravado. The risk of propelling the dissidents into the revolt mode was too high. If BJP waited till midnight to announce one of its lists, the Congress went a step ahead and kept the names of last four candidates close to its chest till the final hour of the last day of nominations. The demands for tickets and revolts on refusal in not new; the belligerence definitely is. The alarming increase in palpable impatience among the ticket seekers, along with aggression in seeking what was once sought only with persuasions and pleadings, is also a recent development. Shashank Sharma, the Raipur-based editor of the Hindi daily Deshbandhu, underlines that this trend is something very new to the BJP culture. He feels that the sudden increase in worldly possessions and power of the elected few in the last five years is a big reason for the gate crash by all and sundry today. No wonder old RSS/Jansangh/BJP veterans like Rajni Tai Upasne (his son was denied ticket), Prabhat Rao Meghawale (the family has been the flag-bearer of RSS in Dhamtari area) and Karuna Shukla (niece of Atal Bihari Bajpay and herself a senior leader who has now left the party) feel bypassed, ignored and unwanted. Satish Jaiswal, a Bilaspur-based senior Hindi journalist and poet, attributes the change to the shift in favour of the young. He believes the experience and the accompanying sobriety are being overlooked at the cost of the age. The profiles of the candidates support his observation. For the 90 seats in the assembly the two main parties have given 95 tickets to those under 50. Out of these, 31 are in the 30-40 age group and three are not even 30. Only two out of the 180 tickets have gone to over-70 veterans – both have been in the assembly for six and seven terms respectively.