Chouhan knows that rumours that the party might shift him to Delhi amid the latest corruption scandal to hit his government are just that - rumours. The scandal itself is pretty damaging: a right-hand man and minister Laxmikant Sharma is in jail and half-a-dozen functionaries of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), including the late sarsanghchalak K S Sudarshan and sah sarkaryavah Suresh Soni, are allegedly linked with the state's multi-crore Professional Examination Board (PEB) scam currently being investigated by a MP Police special task force.
The PEB exam is the one you have to take before you become eligible either for most state government jobs or for admission to several colleges. Obviously, if you can manipulate the results of these examinations, you wield enormous clout.
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The matter was discussed in the state Assembly last week and Chouhan said that if ever, anyone found that anyone from Gondia (his wife Sadhna's hometown in Maharashtra) had got a job in the government, Chouhan would quit political life. But the complication is introduced by the claim of a "sewadar" (helper) who worked with Sudarshan who got a government job using "influence" and spilled the beans to the special task force. The RSS is certain that Sudarshan is blameless but is less convinced about other members named in the scam and is extremely worried that its reputation will be sullied beyond repair if more names come out. Laxmikant Sharma, who represents an Assembly constituency in Vidisha and has been Chouhan's right-hand man, meanwhile, is ready to co-operate with anyone to get out of jail.
The fact is that while Chouhan might not be personally involved in the scam, he is in the same position as Manmohan Singh: who watched while people made money. This takes the sheen off somewhat from his reputation as a popular chief minister who is serving a third term, unprecedented for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state. The party won 27 out of 29 Lok Sabha seats and 15 out of the 29 were new candidates.
Chouhan has a lot to be proud about. MP has a good record in financial management with the lowest revenue deficit in the country.
When it lost most of its mineral wealth with the creation of Chhattisgarh, the state staggered but managed to stabilise itself because of two commodities: soya bean and wheat. MP grows more than 70 per cent of India's soya bean. But what is really lucrative is the export of de-oiled soya cake. (Soyabean has 40 per cent of protein content and 26 per cent oil content. Once the oil has been removed, the high-protein residue, known as de-oiled soya, is an excellent source of animal and bird feed, and is in high demand in Argentina, Brazil and so on. Because it is non-genetically modified, wary European buyers also buy it in large quantities.) The "sharbati" wheat grown in the state is eyed greedily by other north Indian states such as Uttar Pradesh and Punjab because it is much more flavourful than the variety they grow. While the national rate of growth of agriculture is around four per cent, MP's rate of agricultural growth is a staggering 18 per cent.
All this is facilitated by the large land holdings the state continues to have. You can still buy land and set up an industry in MP without too much difficulty. Abhilash Khandekar, the author of an excellent biography of Shivraj Singh Chouhan notes that Chouhan, because he himself belongs to a poor kisan family, is deeply biased towards poorer farmers because he understands their pain. In this respect, he is unlike Akhilesh Yadav or Vasundhara Raje Scindia. Agricultural loans in MP used to attract 16 per cent interest. Chouhan brought interest rates down to nine and now to zero per cent interest. This has increased rural disposable income enormously. No MP co-operative bank in the state has failed so far.
The way Chouhan works is simple. Periodically, he calls for panchayats: these are like Nitish Kumar's janata darbars. Hundreds of thousands of people belonging to a profession and skill are gathered together and they talk to the chief minister. Khandekar says that the last panchayat Chouhan called was of drivers and conductors: all kinds of drivers, including taxi drivers (they numbered around 10,000) were invited. Chouhan announced a Rs 1 lakh Sarthishri Award for the best driver and conductor. Registered drivers-conductors are now eligible for wheat and rice at Rs 1 a kg. A driver-conductor welfare board will provide social security with a corpus of Rs 10 crore and medical assistance. On a cheesier note, he asked drivers and conductors to take a solemn oath not to drink and drive. "The reputation of the state depends on you," he told them.
But that said, corruption levels in MP are high. Chouhan is unable to rein his colleagues in. In 2013, when he was sworn in as chief minister, he announced that the new government will have zero tolerance for corruption. Nothing has changed on this front. Shivraj Singh Chouhan does not evoke fear. That is both his weakness and his strength.