Two months ago, this column correctly deduced that importing a number of reluctant heavyweight BJP state leaders from Delhi to fight the Assembly polls was less about election tactics and more about smoothly effecting a generational shift on the lines of the Gujarat model. The message loud and clear is that no one is indispensable, except Prime Minister Modi. For the proud former royal and CM, Vasundhara Raje, it was a bitter pill to swallow. She had to read out the name of the little-known MLA Bhajan Lal Sharma at the last minute, without Rajnath Singh even confiding the CM’s choice to her beforehand as she requested.
Vasundhara fought openly for her position till the end, requesting that she at least be appointed CM for a year before bowing out gracefully. Shivraj Singh Chouhan was more subtle. He did not question the party leadership, but photos posted on social media advertised his mass appeal and he sent feelers to the RSS that at 64, he has many more years of service to offer the party. Chouhan will probably be inducted as a party office bearer at some point. Whether the hopes of his followers — that he eventually takes over from JP Nadda as president – fructify is another matter. His early history with Modi works against him.
Reality Bites
The Congress leadership was so confident that it would be winning at least two, if not three, states in the Hindi heartland that the party headquarters ordered 200 kilograms of mithai from a Delhi sweet house on counting day. A former Congress chief minister even flew to Delhi on a chartered flight so that he could be part of the celebrations. But when it became apparent that the party would draw a blank in north India, the celebratory sweets were returned.
Congress president, Mallikarjun Kharge’s initial reaction after the results was to ask the state presidents of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh to step down for grossly misleading the high command, but he was advised against any precipitous step. In MP, there is no suitable candidate to replace Kamal Nath. Nath’s equally elderly rival, Digvijay Singh, has also fared below par in the polls and promising younger faces such as Jitu Patwari and Kamleshwar Patel have lost. When Rahul Gandhi spoke sarcastically to Nath about the defeat, the 77-year-old Nath replied angrily that he had been around for much longer than anyone else in the Congress and even Rahul’s father sought his advice. In Rajasthan too, Gehlot, who once turned down party presidentship rather than give up control of the state, will not go gently.
Questionable Tactics
When a journalist on X mocked Meenakshi Lekhi’s long-winded, prevaricating written response to an unstarred question in Parliament as to whether there was any proposal to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation, Lekhi denied having been consulted about the embarrassing reply. In fact, she publicly demanded an inquiry into how her name was linked to the answer. Expectedly, Opposition MPs raised a hue and cry over false information given in parliamentary records. The real target of Lekhi’s ire was perhaps higher-ups in the ministry. MEA bureaucrats often treat junior ministers cavalierly, something the high-profile, BJP national spokesperson is not used to. Perhaps, Lekhi is also apprehensive about retaining her New Delhi parliamentary seat.
The MEA promptly issued a “technical correction’’ that the Hamas question had in fact been answered by fellow MoS V Muraleedharan and Lekhi’s name had been mistakenly attributed. Incidentally, the straightforward reply to the parliamentary question should have been that it is the responsibility of the Home Ministry to state whether Hamas is a terrorist group, which it has not been declared as yet.
Inventive Campaign
Two of the unsung, low-key heroes who contributed to the BJP’s spectacular victories in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh through systematic micromanagement of campaigns are central ministers Bhupendra Yadav and Mansukhlal Mandaviya. Amit Shah deputed Yadav to MP six months before the poll and Yadav’s strategy was to concentrate on 89 seats which the party lost last time. He identified 100 booths in which the BJP trailed badly and assigned observers from the party and organisation to personally speak to voters. The BJP eventually won 66 of the 89 seats.
In Chhattisgarh, Mansukhlal Mandaviya was equally proactive, traveling from one party worker’s house to the next. Off his own bat, he floated the Mahatari Vandan Yojana programme, an imitation of the Ladli Behna Yojana scheme in MP. Even though the BJP was not in power in the state, party workers got women voters to fill out forms for the scheme which entitled them to Rs 1,500 monthly. It was termed a “Modi guarantee’’ scheme.
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