Much before the five Indian states of
Madhya Pradesh, Chhattis-garh, Delhi, Rajasthan and Mizoram had gone to
the polls in November-December, pollsters had been predicting at least
one thing with certainty – that the incumbent Madhya Pradesh Chief
Minister Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan was set for a record third term in
the state Assembly. The election results announced on December 8, that
anointed Shri Chouhan yet again as the ruler of the central Indian
state, therefore, were no surprise at all as far as Madhya Pradesh was
concerned.
A lot many bouquets have been handed to
Shri Chouhan since then for achieving a laudable feat for the Bharatiya
Janata Party. Several reasons have been cited for the stupendous
performance of the party in the state, which won 165 seats out of a
total 230, making its tally higher than the 143 in 2008 election.
An important reason for his victory,
which has unfortunately not been lauded enough in as many words on
innumerable panel discussions, has been his genuine, honest connect with
the grass roots, the absence of which has sent the country’s oldest
party Congress hiding for cover since December 8.
Shri Chouhan’s one-on-one connect with
his voters has created a mass appeal over the years in his favour, and
it helped him in routing the Opposition Congress and virtually reducing
it to a non-entity in MP.
And, his image of a humble, modest and
low-profile Chief Minister for more than eight years reflected in his
first address after the victory, when he said, “This victory is a
victory of BJP’s ideology, victory of the organisation and victory of
all the party workers, who have dedicated themselves for the cause,
without ever caring for their names to be known in public. I’m neither a
raja nor a sadhak, but just a party worker and a sevak of BJP who has tried to do his duty with honesty.”
The huge margin with which the BJP won,
even surpassing 2008 figure can only be compared with the victory gained
by Uma Bharati-led BJP in 2003. But even after that Shri Chouhan
displayed not an iota of pride or arrogance, and instead said, “Any
ordinary party worker in my position would have won,” while thanking all
– from senior citizens to mothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, etc.
Giving a jolt to the Congress, which was
expecting to end its 10-year long exile under the leadership of
Jyotiraditya Scindia, the BJP won 165 seats in the 230-member House,
whereas the Congress managed to win only 58 seats, and others seven,
including the Bahujan Samaj Party winning five seats.
Shri Chouhan who won from his
traditional Budhni seat by 84,805 votes, played a master strategist by
contesting from Vidisha seat as well and winning it by 16,966 votes. He
played the master stroke to retain the seat in favour of the BJP as it
originally belonged to former Finance Minister Raghavji, who was sacked
on charges of sodomy.
With his mass appeal and connecting to
almost each and every voter of his area, veteran BJP leader and Urban
Administration minister Babulal Gaur recorded a tenth consecutive
victory from Govindpura by 70,644 votes by creating a record of the
sorts.
Though due to Shri Chouhan’s clean and
secular image, the BJP won seats in Muslim-dominated regions like
Burhanpur but the Muslim-dominated Bhopal (North) seat was won by
Congress heavy-weight Arif Aqueel defeating the only Muslim BJP
candidate Arif Baig. “But, it can’t be denied that a considerable number
of Muslim voters across MP voted in favour of BJP, as many Muslim girls
from economically weaker section had been beneficiaries of Shri
Chouhan’s much-lauded Kanyadaan Yojna,” observes Umesh Chandra, who has
been closely analysing the state elections.
“Pro-incumbency followed by Shri
Chouhan’s welfare schemes, pro-poor image, over-whelming popularity
among women voters, good governance and leadership helped in increasing
its winning margin and may ultimately wipe out the divided Congress in
MP,” an expert said.
Mincing no words, Shri Chouhan gave a
clarion call to party workers and appealed to voters that under the
leadership of its Prime-Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi time had
arrived to work hard to ensure the formation of a BJP-led government at
the Centre in 2014. “Madhya Pradesh will ensure maximum number of MPs
for this mission,” Shri Chouhan added.(Orgniser)
(The writer is a Delhi-based
journalist, who writes on various issues related Madhya Pradesh and
Chhattisgarh. He can be reached at dbg@rediffmail.com)
The
killing of Indian soldiers at the LoC has once again brought up the
issue of state sponsored terrorism by Pakistan. The Indian Home Ministry
on Tuesday issued several statements relating to terror funding and
infiltrations into India.