 "Bhupesh Baghel")
In Chhattisgarh, ‘Modi’s guarantees’ trumped those promised by the ruling Congress to the state’s electorate, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) securing its biggest win there.
The BJP was on the cusp of winning an unprecedented 54 seats in the 90-member Assembly with a vote share of 46.3 per cent, its best performance since the first Assembly elections in the central Indian state in 2003.
As Chhattisgarh voted for its second phase on November 17, the top BJP leadership, who met journalists at a Diwali Milan celebration at the party’s national headquarters, expressed surprise at how quickly their attack on the Bhupesh Baghel government’s alleged corruption scandals forced the Congress to pull the chief minister (CM) back from the frontline of battle.
The infighting between Deputy CM Tribhuvaneshwar Saran Singh Deo and Baghel contributed to the party’s lacklustre campaign. Singh Deo had nursed the slight that the Congress high command failed to deliver on its promise made to him in 2018. Singh Deo had maintained that Baghel and he were to share the chief ministerial post, but the party leadership reneged. In the event, at least half a dozen ministers lost, Singh Deo was trailing in his Ambikapur seat, and the Congress state unit chief Deepak Baij, a Lok Sabha member, also lost. Baghel won his Patan seat.
The Congress had won a landslide in 2018, interrupting the BJP’s streak of three successive victories since 2003. The Congress was expected to win the 2023 elections on the back of its government’s schemes for farmers, increased minimum support price (MSP) on paddy, policies for the state’s tribal population, and initiated cultural projects, such as constructing the Ram Van Gaman Path.
In the run-up to the elections, the Congress said its government would procure 20 quintals of paddy per acre from farmers in this kharif season. During electioneering, it promised a loan waiver to farmers, increased financial assistance to landless labourers under Rajiv Gandhi Bhumihin Kisan Nyay Yojana from Rs 7,000 to Rs 10,000, providing free education from “KG to PG” (kindergarten to postgraduation), and free electricity up to 200 units.
More From This Section
The Congress also announced a subsidy of Rs 500 on domestic gas cylinders, the purchase of tendu leaves per bag for Rs 6,000, and an annual bonus of Rs 4,000 to tendu leaf collectors, free treatment up to Rs 10 lakh to the poor, free treatment to victims in road accidents, and a loan waiver to self-help groups. The Congress, in its manifesto, revised its paddy procurement MSP to Rs 3,200 per quintal of paddy for farmers.
However, the BJP matched the Congress in announcing welfare schemes, titling its manifesto ‘Modi ki guarantee’, while the Sangh Parivar worked against alleged ‘conversion’. The BJP also fielded as its candidate the father of one of the victims of a ‘communal riot’ in the state.
The BJP did not announce a chief ministerial face, contesting on the back of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s popularity, who campaigned extensively and reached out to the state’s Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and tribals in his speeches.
According to sources, the party could look beyond former CM Raman Singh. Leaders in contention to become the CM include state unit chief and Bilaspur Member of Parliament Arun Sao, an OBC, and former Indian Administrative Service officer O P Chaudhary.
The BJP's promises included the procurement of 21 quintals of paddy per acre at Rs 3,100 per quintal, annual financial assistance of Rs 12,000 to married women under the Mahtari Vandana Yojana, the construction of 1.8 million houses under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana, tendu leaf procurement at Rs 5,500 per standard sack and a bonus of Rs 4,500 to leaf collectors, and annual assistance of Rs 10,000 to landless farm labourers.
The BJP also announced gas cylinders at Rs 500 each to women from poor families, monthly travel allowance to students for going to college, an ‘ashvasan’ (assurance) certificate worth Rs 1.5 lakh to below-poverty-line families on the birth of a girl child, and free trips to Ayodhya to visit the Ram Temple were among other populist promises of the BJP.
Amid reports of BJP’s Mahtari Vandana Yojana gaining popularity among women, Baghel on Diwali (November 12) promised to launch Chhattisgarh Griha Lakshmi Yojana under which women were promised to be given financial assistance of Rs 15,000 annually.
Former CM Raman Singh credited the BJP’s win to Chhattisgarh’s women.
