BJP’S longest-serving CM goes but dream run not over
BASTION FALLS Experts and leaders close to Raman Singh say he can still play a crucial role if BJP could use him like Cong’s Gehlot
NEWDELHI: In the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), people equated Raman Singh with Jyoti Basu, the communist veteran who ruled West Bengal for 23 years and 137 days.
Singh, 66, was the BJP’S longest serving chief minister, completing 15 years in office on December 6. No other BJP CM has served for so long. Narendra Modi had an uninterrupted 4,610 days as Gujarat CM before becoming the Prime Minister in May 2014. Singh, who completed 5,000 days in August, is the only BJP CM after Modi to have won three assembly elections in a row.
His dream run ended in a humiliation on Tuesday, with the BJP falling to 16 seats from its previous tally of 49.
The doctor-politician had wrested Chhattisgarh from the Congress in 2003. With a strong 30% plus population of tribals, Chhattisgarh was a Congress bastion for decades and had contributed significantly in the formation of a Congress government in undivided Madhya Pradesh.
If the BJP’S 2003 victory was largely considered an anti-ajit Jogi (the then CM) vote, the next two elections saw Singh returning to power on a positive vote.
Singh earned the sobriquet ‘chaur wale baba’ (rice saint) for distributing cheaper rice to a large section of the poor, won applause for introducing a leakproof public distribution system, ushering in an era of industrialisation and bring the Maoist problem under check.
But, as election approached, he struggled to get over the fatigue of anti-incumbency that had set against him and his legislators. He also faced allegations of nepotism and corruption under his government. The Congress, for the first time, was making direct and personal allegations against the ‘humble’ leader.
Anger among farmers over falling farm prices and a shift of other backward classes (OBC) votes towards the Congress, too, seemed to help the challengers.
“The Congress’s promise for a farm loan waiver worked against us,” a BJP leader in Delhi said.
“But we cannot believe that the Congress could pull the rug from under our feet in the urban areas. There, it seems, was a wave of anger against us, which we could not sense,” an aide of the CM said.
A disappointed Singh told reporters in Raipur, “I take the responsibility for this defeat because the poll was contested under my leadership. We will act as a strong opposition and work for the development of the state.”
“We respect the mandate that the public has given. I congratulate the Congress on this success. I consider it my luck to serve the people of Chhattisgarh for the last 15 years.”
Sidharth Misha, president of the Centre for Reforms, Development and Justice, said Singh remains the BJP’S tallest leader in Chhattisgarh and it would be incorrect to write his political obituary in the wake of this loss.
“He took over the reins of the Chhattisgarh BJP when the party was in tatters. He won three elections. Perhaps, the BJP should see an example in Ashok Gehlot who lost his election in Rajasthan in 2013 but worked tirelessly to revive the party not only in the desert state, but even outside. The BJP should use Singh in a similar role,” he said.
People close to Singh also said it was not the end of the road for the outgoing chief minister. “He is just 66, and there is a lot of politics still left in him,” a person close to the leader said. The person did not rule out Singh contesting the Lok Sabha election in April-may from Rajnandgaon, currently held by his son Abhishek Singh, and enter the national politics for a second innings. He was a minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government before being sent to Chhattisgarh to lead the BJP in the run up to the 2003 assembly election.
Singh was born in a peasant family of Kawardha district on October 15, 1952. His degree in Ayurveda medicine came by chance. He cleared the pre-medical test, but was denied admission in MBBS because he was “too young”. Singh then studied Ayurveda at the government college in Raipur and got his BAMS degree at the age of 23.
Singh earned the admiration of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the BJP leadership while spending the next couple of years treating villagers in his native town.
He made his political debut in 1990, getting elected to the Madhya Pradesh assembly. He was re-elected in 1993, and successfully contested the Lok Sabha polls from Rajnandgaon in 1999.
He was a minister of state in the Vajpayee government at the Centre, named the Chhattisgarh BJP chief in 2003, and eventually led the party to victory that year.