Chhattisgarh Elections 2023: Rudderless to fighting fit, state BJP unit has its high command to thank

Chhattisgarh Elections 2023: BJP has been effective in setting the poll-eve narrative in its favor and has been helped in this by an attractive manifesto.

The election campaign in Chhattisgarh began this time with the BJP starting a new practice. BJP announced its first list of 22 candidates in August itself thereby getting a head start. The remaining candidates were announced after the election dates were announced.

As the election date approached, the electoral environment kept changing. At some places there was opposition to the candidates and at some others, the delay sowed huge confusion.

This is the fifth election after state formation. While BJP won power in 2003, 2008 and 2013, in 2018 Congress formed the government with a three-fourth majority. It was difficult for the Congress to challenge three-term Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh, but by 2018 his popularity had started waning.

Congress Started Strong

In the run-up to the 2023 elections, Congress appeared strongly placed as it had won all the by-elections held in the last five years. With each seat won, BJP looked weaker. In these five years, BJP has not been able to strongly corner the Congress government on any single issue or come out on the streets and oppose it vigorously. The internal strife in BJP which did not come out openly while it was in power, started becoming visible in these five years.

Not preparing the second line of leadership or not allowing it to be formed during the 15 years of the Raman Singh government has emerged as the biggest weakness of the BJP.

The result was that before the official announcement of elections, BJP was looking very weak when compared to Congress that had an array of top leaders besides the formidable Bhupesh Baghel to project.

BJP High Command Saves The Day

But as soon as the elections were announced and the BJP high command entered the scene, the visits of central leaders started increasing and all this started creating an atmosphere in favour of the BJP.

The field was now ready for BJP’s most important player, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to enter and play hard and he did what was expected of him doing the heavy lifting that no state leader of the party including Raman Singh seemed incapable of doing.

In the past five years, the Congress government has been accused of many scams, such as coal scam, liquor scam, patronage networks, and involvement in online betting and there were also raids by ED and IT several times. PM Modi took the initiative on this front by mentioning all these scams in his rallies.

On the organisational front, central BJP leaders started delegating responsibilities to state BJP leaders and workers and made every effort to end the infighting.

A Keenly Poised Contest

With every passing day, political pundits have become more and more confused about which way the wind is blowing.

BJP has been effective in setting the poll-eve narrative in its favor and has been helped in this by an attractive manifesto. Meanwhile, the Congress manifesto has paid close attention to BJP’s announcements and sought to counter it. BJP’s difficulty has been that its 2013 to 2018 government had left many promises unfulfilled.

North Chhattisgarh which goes to the polls today had voted overwhelmingly for Congress as it expected TS Singhdeo to be made CM of the state. Failure on this score will hurt the Congress alongside some internal conflicts and issues in the ticket declaration.

In the Chhattisgarh plains, farmers issues like paddy procurement price of both parties and loan waiver declaration by Congress is dominating the discourse. In South Chhattisgarh, religious conversion had dominated the discourse.

At stake are the political careers of top leaders on either side like Bhupesh Baghel, TS Singhdeo and Tamradhwaj Sahu of Congress and Raman Singh, OP Choudhary and Vijay Sharma of BJP.

If BJP had fought a street battle for five years, the situation would have been more interesting. There are many questions which will be answered on December 3 but what can clearly be said is that this time Chhattisgarh assembly elections are keenly poised.

Harsh Dubey is a political commentator based in Raipur. Views are personal, and do not represent the stance of the publication.