Surmounting anti-incumbency factor, charges of corruption and controversies surrounding some of his ministers, Shivraj Singh Chouhan today steered BJP to a record third straight win in Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, inflicting a resounding defeat on Congress.
BJP bagged 165 seats, dashing Congress' hopes of wresting back power in the country's second largest state where it ended up with a tally of 58, after a decade.
The victory that equalised BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's feat of a hat-trick in Gujarat, may catapult Chouhan to the top echelon in the saffron outfit.
Though BJP's showing in the current election marked a substantial improvement on its performance in 2008 polls when it had bagged 143 seats against Congress' 71, it still fell short of the staggering figure of 173 in 2003 when led by firebrand sanyasin Uma Bharti it had secured a three-fourths majority. Congress had put up a pathetic performance with a tally of 38.
Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party won four seats, three short of what it had fetched in 2008, while independents bagged three.
While BJP leaders, including its president Rajnath Singh, were quick to attribute the victory to party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi's popularity apart from the state government's performance, a self-effacing Chouhan had largely sought endorsement for good governance during electioneering and steered clear of any divisive agenda.
Apart from the performance of its government, what apparently worked for Chouhan was his image of a 'moderate' leader, who deftly maintained a delicate balance between BJP's core Hindutva philosophy and tenets of secular democracy.
While he introduced 'Surya Namaskar' (Sun Salutation) in schools and banned cow slaughter, he did not fight shy of appearing at Iftar parties wearing skull caps, unlike Modi, who had refused to wear the Muslim headgear during his 'Sadbhavna' fast in September 2011 when a cleric handed him one, inviting criticism from secularists.
