If Shivraj could contest 230 seats, BJP would romp home in MP

By Dinesh Narayanan A couple of months ago, Abdul Jabbar, the tireless crusader for Bhopal gas leak victims, had a visitor at his modest home off Itwari Road in the old section of the state capital of Madhya Pradesh. The person told him that he was quite sheepish in approaching him yet he had to because the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party had sent him. “The party high command wants to know if you would be willing to contest from the Bhopal (North) assembly constituency,’’ he said, according to Jabbar. “I told him I have never been in power politics and I have no intention of doing so,’’ Jabbar says. [caption id=“attachment_124516” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Shivraj SIngh Chouhan has dominated the BJP’s campaign. Reuters[/caption] Bhopal (North) is the only constituency in Madhya Pradesh where the BJP has put up a Muslim candidate, Arif Baig. The sitting MLA, Arif Aqeel of the Congress Party, has won the seat twice. Many voters in the constituency have not even heard of Baig, a 78-year-old whose claim to fame is having beaten the Congress Party’s Shankar Dayal Sharma in the Lok Sabha elections of 1977 on a Janata Party ticket. He later switched to the BJP but left for the Congress in 1996 when he was denied a ticket, only to return in 2003. “We were under a lot of pressure to have at least one Muslim candidate because of our [anti-Muslim] image,’’ a state leader who is currently a Rajya Sabha member, says. “If we convince the Hindu voters in the constituency to vote for him, Baig might even win.’’ Even Baig is not canvassing for votes on his own but piggybacking on Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s clean image and popularity. His campaign line is that when voters press the button against his name, they are actually voting for Chouhan. The affable chief minister, known fondly as ‘mamaji’, or uncle, dominates this assembly election. Huge billboards have just Chouhan on them. The main slogans in Hindi translate to “We are not rulers, but servers”, and “Honest personality, responsible leadership”. A campaign manager for Chouhan says it was a conscious decision. The party understands that many leaders in the state are unpopular and are even likely to lose their seats. For instance, there is a general feeling in the party’s top echelons that Industry Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya would lose. Incidentally, the manager says, Vijayvargiya may not have got a seat if not for Narendra Modi’s insistence. Chouhan had played along despite his reservations. “And there are about 10 Vijayvargiyas,” he says. That means Chouhan had to shoulder the bulk of the heavy lifting. The party calculates that Chouhan’s appeal alone would be decisive in about 80 to 100 seats. A party MP says that the Congress has about 30-40 candidates who can win on their own steam. “But we have about 70 of them,’’ he says. That means if Mamaji’s magic works in another 70, the party would cruise home. Internal assessments of the party show it losing some seats but still getting a comfortable majority. Chouhan, 54, has pulled out all stops, touring the state extensively. He had already done a road show with his Jan Ashirwad Yatra that started in July and ended in October, travelling 8,000 km and through 224 assembly constituencies. He again visited practically every constituency during the campaign, intensifying efforts as the polling date drew closer. Would that be enough?. After seven years at the helm, Chouhan’s image of a clean, down-to-earth, ever-ready-to-help person has remained intact. But dig a bit deeper and the gloss is not as shiny. Abdul Jabbar of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sansthan says the chief minister has always promised support but never given any. The state government has not joined the gas victims’ appeal in the Supreme Court for better compensation. There has not even been a proper headcount and documentation of people suffering from bad lungs, poor eyesight and other health issues, a legacy of the world’s worst industrial accident – the Union Carbide factory gas leak – that killed over 15,000 people and crippled nearly six lakh for life. Jabbar points to one of Chouhan’s pet schemes – the Mukhyamantri Teerth Darshan Yojana—as putting populism over substantive welfare. The state has tied up with the Railways to run pilgrimage trains under the scheme to 17 centres such as Vaishnodevi, Puri, Kashi, Shirdi, Ajmer Sharif and Velankanni church. The state sponsors poor senior citizens and a helper to take the train ride to a destination of their choice once in a life time. “They are willing to spend money on pilgrimage but will not raise the old age pension,’’ says Jabbar. A central pension scheme for old people started nearly 20 years ago used to pay Rs 75 every month. In 2006, the centre increased it to Rs 200 and asked states to contribute an equal amount. But Madhya Pradesh pays only Rs 75, says Jabbar. Yet voters may put pilgrimage over pension. Imtiaz Alam (name changed), a first time voter from Bhopal (North) who works as a hotel manager, says he would vote for Arif Aqeel of the Congress. What does he think of Chouhan? “He is a good man. If he was contesting from my constituency, I will vote only for him but not for Baig.’’ That is the risk with presidential style campaigns in parliamentary systems, especially when the voter is discerning. Madhya Pradesh results could very well be indicative of what could happen in the general elections next year.