Chhattisgarh: Neither BJP nor Cong have learnt from past follies

Raipur: In Chhattisgarh, both the BJP and the Congress are out in the field battling each other wearing their weaknesses on their sleeves. The tally here would reflect not how the strong areas of each matched in the final analysis but which party was impacted more by its own shortcomings. Out of the 11 seats in Chhattisgarh, the BJP has 10 in its kitty, an overwhelmingly favourable share it has retained since 2004. But the party wants more this time, nothing less than a clean sweep. Chief Minister Raman Singh has fast acquired the status of a mass leader after returning to power for the third consecutive term and the party has added the Modi wave to its armoury. The confidence in the BJP ranks does not look out of place. The Congress was optimistic too without having made too many efforts to justify it except for the fact that it had almost nothing to lose. All the results could end up in was gain at best – or no further loss at worse. No wonder all the surveys, contrary to the trends in other parts of the country indicated some gain for the Congress in Chhattisgarh. [caption id=“attachment_1312675” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh in this file photo. PTI[/caption] If both the parties fail - the BJP in achieving its goal of a clean sweep and the Congress in justifying the expectations of the survey results – they themselves would have to take the blame for making a mess of their prospects. The state is different from many others in one crucial respect: in the assembly elections held four months ago it had got an opportunity to undergo a full dress rehearsal, to have a feel of the public mood and make course correction in their strategies wherever necessary. One glaring outcome of the election results was the ruthless rejection of the tried and tested candidates, including veterans. In the assembly polls of late 2013, as many as 49 MLAs out of the total 90 lost. The voters appeared tired of ‘stale’ candidates rather than the parties they represented. In 25 seats, the Congress won at the cost of the BJP and gave away 22 others to the BJP. The new house had 34 new faces from both the parties. If the BJP was ruing the fact that it had failed to faithfully emulate what was called the ‘Gujarat model’ and did not get rid of the old faces, the Congress camp blamed it on leaders ignoring the ‘Rahul formula’ of experimenting even with the greenhorns. Yet no lessons have been learnt. The BJP repeated six of its sitting MPs. Out of the five new faces, two were unavoidable as the MPs from Bialspur and Sarguja had died towards the end of their terms. The Rajnandgaon MP was dropped to make place for Raman Singh’s son Abhishek. Another seat to see a new face was Kanker where the sitting MP had failed to keep his links with the Maoists private. The replacement does not smell of roses either when it comes to similar links but this did not matter to the party. The repeated candidates include Ramesh Bais, a veteran aspiring for his seventh win, sixth in a row, from Raipur and Vishnu Dev Sai, looking for his fourth win from Raigarh. Saroj Pandey from Durg, Kamla Patle from Janjgir-Champa and Chandu Lal Sahu from Mahasamund are one-term old. The announcement of the list lit the fire in the forest and now after a month the party is working overtime to douse it. However, the sheer size of the constituencies is making the task difficult. Many of the sprawling constituencies in the state are larger than states such as Goa and Haryana. In Raigarh, for example, all the opposition has to do is to put up a question in any of the 2,230 villages spread out in an area of 11,235 square kilometers – “Has your MP visited your village in the last five or ten years?” The answer almost always would be in negative and the “Nishkriya (inactive)” sitting MP’s fate is sealed then and there. Raipur has accumulated many physical evidence of development over the decade. But the credit for all of it was pocketed by Raman Singh and his government four months ago. The sitting MP is not left with any to claim and show as his contribution. It is too much to expect the party to effectively counter anti-incumbency with just two ammunition in hand - the Raman effect and the Modi wave. The wave, as the vote share in the assembly elections revealed, was only a ripple in the tribal areas. The situation could have been tailor-made for the Congress to increase its tally. But it started, first by repeating its solitary sitting MP Charan Das Mahant from Korba. Then it went on to make a mess in the remaining seats. The party “under Rahul Gandhi” had reportedly worked for months and years surveying, identifying, sorting, short listing, checking and cross-checking the candidates before coming out with the list of the best candidates. In five days flat, candidates in two constituencies were changed, for no apparent reason. In Raipur, the drama went on till the last day of nomination where the candidates were changed and re-changed and then again changed. In Raigarh it changed “the best” with the second best with no explanations attached. The disenchantment amongst the cadre was left to fester at the cost of a good prospect. In Janjgir-Champa, the candidate is a new face. Many Congressmen complained he was not known to them also. The candidate claimed to a newspaper that he was discovered by Rahul Gandhi on Facebook. One month into campaigning, the seat and the candidate have been abandoned and unofficially declared a gone case by the party. The Pradesh Congress chief Bhupesh Baghel has confined himself to Durg and Rajnandgaon seats and the leader of the opposition TS Singhdeo to Sarguja and Korba. Ajit Jogi, the one-man army in Mahasamund requisitioned all the OBC party leaders from the state to his seat forcing BK Hari Prasad, the general secretary in-charge to issue a warning of stern action for anyone leaving his constituency. The circular was ignored and Hari Prasad thought it wise to look the other way. The shortcomings of both the parties makes the polls here open. Finally, it’s a case of who suffers more because of these.