In Chhattisgarh, a tough fight for the backward vote

Congress looks to continue momentum from assembly poll victory, BJP banks on Modi and fresh faces to buck anti-incumbency

RAIPUR: Over the past 15 years, Chhattisgarh slowly turned into a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bastion. The party consistently won a large majority of the Lok Sabha seats in the state, which took part in its first parliamentary election in 2004, four years after it was carved out of Madhya Pradesh.barring the first three years of Congress rule, the saffron party uninterruptedly controlled the state dominated by tribespeople, and chief minister Raman Singh became one of the BJP’S most popular political leaders. But the juggernaut was stopped last December when the Congress returned to power in a landslide victory on a promise to waive farm loans and empower the weaker sections and backward communities, who make up an overwhelming majority of the electorate.

This time around, for the first time, the two national parties are going into the elections on a more-or-less even footing. The Congress wants to retain the momentum from the assembly polls, in which it won a two-thirds majority, while the BJP is aiming to highlight the central government’s policies under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who remains popular. The Lok Sabha elections will also be a battle of fresh faces as both parties have decided to field mostly newcomers.

Chhattisgarh is primarily a rural state with 75% of the population living in the villages. Around 30% of the state’s population is tribal, another 12% Dalits and 54% from other backward classes (OBCS), according to state government data. Two out of every five persons in the state is officially poor.

“Many of our candidates in assembly were from deprived sections. One of our candidates went to people to mortgage his half-broken house to raise funds for the campaign. Another postgraduate woman candidate contested on crowd-sourced money. Both of them won. These candidates helped us to show that Raman Singh’s 15 year rule was misrule,” said Vinod Verma, Congress poll strategist and now adviser to chief minister Bhupesh Bhagel.

Four of the 12 members in Singh’s cabinet hailed from dominant trading communities, which experts say gave the Congress an opportunity to create a campaign around the impression that the BJP was a party of the rich and powerful.

Raipur-based political analyst Ashok Tomar said the Congress communicated this well and the BJP would have to negate this factor. “Bhagel was seen as a leader fighting for cause of the poor and the Congress managed the caste equations better than the BJP,” Tomar said.

In the last three months, a section of BJP leaders admit , Bhagel has not provided it much ammunition to wage a negative campaign. Unlike in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where state elections were held with Chhattisgarh in November-december 2018, the BJP has not held any major protest against the Congress government. “It is too early to start an agitation against Bhagel,” said BJP leader and former agriculture minister Brij Mohan Aggarwal, who admitted that the BJP leadership failed to read the undercurrent of resentment against the Raman Singh government.

Instead, the BJP is focusing on Modi and the central government’s schemes in the belief that the burden of local anti-incumbency associated with Raman Singh’s government is now gone.

“I went to a few villages and people there were talking about the work done by PM Modi for them. One of them showed me his house built under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana and said that in state elections they voted for Congress as they wanted to throw Raman Singh out but in the Lok Sabha, there is no challenge to PM Modi,” a senior Indian Police Service officer, who has been posted in the state for the last 13 years, said on condition of anonymity.

“The policies of the Modi government are visible everywhere and the common man has been benefitted by the schemes, which will surely give us votes. As far placing fresh candidates is concerned, the strategy is to fight the anti-incumbency and we hope to get more than nine seats,” said Sacchinand Upasane, senior BJP leader and spokesperson.

“I believe that the BJP will give a tough fight in three -four seats in Chhattisgarh “said Tomar.

POLL STRATEGY

Local pride is a big theme in these elections for the Congress, which is painting the BJP as a party of outsiders and the rich, especially in the tribal and Dalit belts in the state. There are five reserved seats -- 4 ST and one SC-- of the total 11 and the OBCS can swing the contest in four more LS seats.

In the 2009 and 2014 LS polls, the BJP won all of these nine seats but the December assembly poll saw the Congress’s vote share increase in all the reserved seats. Among the 29 seats reserved for scheduled tribes,, the Congress won 25, besides securing seven of the 10 scheduled caste-reserved seats.

Experts said that the OBCS backed the Congress over the third front – an alliance between former chief minister Ajit Jogi’s Janata Congress Chhattisgarh and Bahujan Samaj Party.

Realising backward communities are back in the party fold, many decisions of the new government have aimed at nurturing their support. According to state government estimates, the cost of new pro-poor schemes is about ₹50,000 crore, including waiver of loans of 1.9 million farmers. Its impact, Baghel claims, is reflected in the fact that no major incident of Maoist violence has taken place since the Congress came to power.

Dharamlal Kaushik, the leader of opposition in the Chhattisgarh assembly, said all other development work suffered in the state because of farm loan waiver, which also was not given to all. “The Congress government has not announced a single new infrastructure project and any policy to create jobs in the state,” he said.

Jogi, who left the Congress and formed a new party thinking he would play kingmaker after the 2018 assembly elections and who has withdrawn his party from the Lok Sabha elections, said that for the first time, Chhattisgarhi pride is in the forefront of an election campaign. “(Bhupesh) Baghel is seen as a Chhattisgarhi as against the BJP leaders who are considered outsiders,” said Jogi, the CM’S bête noire in the Congress.

FARM AND FOREST

Farm and forest issues carried the Congress to a massive victory in the state, where around 80% of the population is directly or indirectly dependent on either of the two. Of the 35 new schemes announced by the new Chhattisgarh government, half are farm-related and for those living in the forests. Baghel said he had implemented the poll promise of farm loan waiver and higher minimum support price (MSP) for paddy ---₹2,500 as compared to ₹1,700 earlier.

To woo forest dwellers, Bhagel returned 4,200 hectares of land of tribespeople acquired by the previous BJP government and started allocation of land records under the Forest Rights Act, which was withheld by the last government. “We are reviewing false cases registered against tribals in the name ofthe fight against Maoism. Our aim is to resolve problems of the poor,” the CM said. The state government has announced a minimum support price for 15 items of forest produce collected by forest communities, including the highest rate of ₹4,000 per quintal for procurement of tendu leaves.

Sudeeh Tikam, leader of Chhattisgarh Kisan Union, said the organisation will hold functions across the state to thank the Congress for delivering on farm loan waivers. “The previous BJP government also made a lot of promises for the farmers but did nothing. The Congress has at least done something and we will monitor the government’s performance on the farm sector. If they fail, we will start an agitation against Bhagel,” he said.

Govind Bajranji, a farmer based in Mahasamund district, said, “Though all the loans have not been waived, they (the Congress) have shown intention for our welfare. And we believe that the CM will deliver on his promises after the LS polls.” Another farmer, Ram Rajesh Kumar, said he still had some issues with getting subsidised seeds and fertilisers, but said the Congress was more farmerfriendly than the BJP.

Aggarwal said loans of all farmers, as promised, have not been waived. “Many of the other schemes for farmer welfare have been sacrificed for giving the loans. Farmers will realise how the Congress has fooled them,” he said.

FRESH FACES

Normally, Lok Sabha polls in the states are about contests between known political satraps. Not in Chhattisgarh, where the BJP has announced it will drop all 10 sitting MPS. The Congress’s lone MP in the 15th Lok Sabha,tamradhwaj Sahu, is now a state minister and may not contest.

The BJP has announced five of the 11 candidates until now, and the names announced --- Renuka Singh, Gomtee Sai, Guhuram Ajgale, Baiduram Kashyap and Mohan Mandavi --have not contested Lok Sabha polls previously.

Kaushik said the decision was “strategic” and aimed at countering anti-incumbency and the anger of voters against the BJP. “Now, only PM Modi will be the factor in the polls,” he said.

The five Congress candidates named so far are also contesting the Lok Sabha polls for the first time. Three of them are sitting legislators --- tribal leader Khelsai Singh from Surguja, Dipak Baij from Bastar, Lakjeet Singh Rathiya from Raigarh – and of the other two, Biresh Thakur is a district panchayat member from Kanker, while Ravi Bhardwaj, whose father Parasram Bhardwaj was an MP, is from Janjgir- Champa.

“As most of our new comers won in the assembly elections, we will be fielding fresh faces in most of the constituencies,” said a senior Congress leader, who requested anonymity.