Madhya Pradesh: BJP high command mulls big changes and a dilemma over Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the poll-bound state

Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan. (File image)

Barely six months ahead of the assembly election in Madhya Pradesh, BJP cadres in the state are waiting with bated breath for likely changes, both in the leadership of the government and the party organisation. Their excitement was palpable on May 26 when social media bustled with congratulatory messages to Union minister of state Prahlad Singh Patel for replacing Vishnu Dutt Sharma as state BJP president. The news, of course, turned out to be a mere rumour but that hasn’t stopped the party workers and leaders from speculating about imminent changes in the leadership in the organisation and the government.

Recent developments in the party – most notably a confabulation among Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, and Prahlad Patel last week in Bhopal – appear to have convinced the rank and file that the BJP high command is keen to re-enact its spectacularly successful experiment in neighbouring Gujarat, to avoid the acute mortification it suffered in Karnataka.

Chouhan Faces Headwinds

A combination of factors – anti-incumbency of 20 years, face-fatigue of its 17 year-long CM, rampant factionalism, and allegations of massive corruption in the government – has provided the high command compelling reasons to mull a reprise of the Gujarat experiment.

Ahead of the assembly election in the western state in 2022, the party high command had changed the chief minister (Vijay Rupani) along with the entire cabinet in 2021, apart from carrying out a drastic reshuffle in the organisation. The sensational experiment yielded results even beyond the expectations of the party with the relatively inexperienced chief minister Bhupendra Patel leading BJP to a magnificent victory in the assembly poll held in December last year.

However, the party balked at repeating the same experiment in Karnataka despite Basavaraj Bommai’s weaknesses owing to a variety of electoral constraints. Defeat in the southern state appears to have emboldened the party high command for a course correction in Madhya Pradesh.

Similarities With Karnataka

In many ways, the political dynamics in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh have striking resemblance. In both the states, the party had wrested power from the Congress by engineering defections. In both the states, OBCs are capable of tilting poll results either way. Like the defeated Basavaraj Bommai, Shivraj Singh Chouhan is banking on communal polarisation for victory, but, as in Karnataka, the issue of massive corruption seems to have overwhelmed the appeal of Hindutva in Madhya Pradesh as well.

If the Congress slogan in Karnataka was of “40 percent commission” government, the MP unit of the party is vociferously accusing the Chouhan administration of 50 percent cuts and commissions in government works.

More importantly, Madhya Pradesh has two formidable Congress opponents to CM Chouhan in former chief ministers Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh. Their combination is strikingly reminiscent of the successful duo of Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah and his deputy DK Shivkumar. With aggressive campaigning, meticulous strategies and remarkable unity of purpose, the septuagenarian Congress stalwarts of Madhya Pradesh have rattled the ruling party.

Factionalism Gets Worse

The BJP has never looked so disorganised and insipid all through its long period in power since 2003. Nor has CM Chouhan appeared so vulnerable. Regardless of who was the state BJP president, it was Chouhan who called the shots. Such has been his dominance in the party that no credible alternative for the chief minister’s post emerged.

Former CM Uma Bharti is already in the political wilderness and Kailash Vijayvargiya has lost considerable clout after the BJP’s loss in West Bengal where he was the party incharge. Another claimant for the top job and home minister Narottam Mishra cannot hope to aspire for promotion because in the BJP’s scheme of things, a Brahmin is unsuited for elevation to the top post in the OBC-dominant Madhya Pradesh politics. This leaves Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia in the reckoning.

But the high command seems to have concluded that the turncoat politician, who along with his 20 acolyte MLAs, had helped the BJP snatch power from the Congress in March 2020, is a major bone of contention in the party. A large section of party loyalists had been resenting Scindia’s growing influence ever since he joined the BJP. Some of them are now openly articulating their grouse against Scindia’s power in the party. They are also particularly peeved over alleged corruption by some of the state ministers who are Scindia loyalists.

One of the disgruntled leaders, former MLA Bhanwar Singh Shekhawat, has attacked Scindia saying he has brought nothing to the BJP’s table. Scindia’s overweening ambition to emerge as a parallel power centre vis-a-vis Shivraj Singh has caused visible divisions in the state BJP. While opposition leaders joke about it, even BJP insiders facetiously acknowledge that the Madhya Pradesh BJP is split in three parts: Shivraj BJP, Maharaj (Jyotiraditya Scindia) BJP, and Naraz(the disgruntled faction) BJP.

State BJP president VD Sharma, a direct appointee from the RSS headquarters, has proved unequal to the task of reconciling the differences in the three factions. Sharma is also facing serious charges of various sorts. That Sharma’s days are numbered looks almost certain. But can the BJP high command take the risk of removing a well-entrenched Shivraj Singh Chouhan too? The answer to this vexatious question is expected to be clear soon enough.

Rakesh Dixit is a senior journalist based in Bhopal. Views are personal and do not represent the stand of this publication.