BSP by his side, Jogi drawing on SC-ST support to dent Congress, BJP chances
BILASPUR: For Richa Jogi, a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate in Chhattisgarh election, the surname counts. Her motorcade enters the weekly market at Kotmi Sonar village to slogans -Abki Baar Jogi Sakrar and Ee Dari Jogi Ke Baari (Jogi government this time). She jumps out of her SUV even before it comes to a halt. The woman, dressed in a printed red saree, has her hands folded in front of voters, and she makes a point to touch the feet of elders. “Do vote for the BSP ,” she tells everyone in the local dialect.
Jogi is no ordinary candidate. She is the daughter-in-law of ex-cm Ajit Jogi and is making her electoral debut from Akaltara in the Janjgir-champa district, upsetting all poll calculations in the Congress bastion.
“She is giving a tough fight to the Congress and the BJP,” said Pratap Chandrakar, as he counts his earnings from the sale of snacks at the weekly market. He is awed by the presence of a ‘star’ candidate in an otherwise neglected part of the state.
Jogi has fielded his son Amit Jogi’s wife from a non-reserved seat on a BSP ticket. He and his wife Renu Jogi are Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC) candidates from Marwahi and Kota in neighbouring Bilaspur.
Together, the BSP and JCC are giving sleepless night to both the Congress and the BJP in Jogi’s pocket borough districts of Bilaspur, Janjgir-champa and Mungeli. In the last assembly polls, the BJP won eight, the Congress six and the BSP just one of the 15 seats across these three districts. “Unlike the popular perception, Jogi is also hurting BJP,” psephologist Sudip Shrivastava said. BJP strongman Vyas Kashyap defected to the JCC after being denied a ticket in JanjgirChampa. Sitting Congress MLA from Bilha in Bilaspur, Siyaram Kaushik, is a JCC candidate this time. “We’re sure of winning 42 seats, the fate of next 8-10 seats depends on Jogi’s performance,” a close aide of CM Raman Singh said. A party needs 46 seats for a simple majority in the 90-member Chhattisgarh assembly. Singh, however, is confident the BJP will cross its 2013 tally of 49 seats. The Congress won 39.
The Jogi element is a new phenomena in this election and he counts on two factors . First, the BSP has a strong presence in this region and any addition to it can spring a surprise. BSP founder Kanshi Ram contested his maiden election for the Lok Sabha from Janjgir -- then in undivided Madhya Pradesh -- in 1984. It won one seat of Janjgir in 2013, stood second in two and polled 20,000 votes in five others seats across Bilaspur, Baloda Bazar and Raigarh. The BSP polled at least 558,000 votes in the last election with a share of 4.4%. This time, it has fielded candidates in 35 and JCC on 55 seats.
Second, Jogi has roped in strong candidates from the BJP and Congress. On seats where the BSP has limited appeal, he borrowed candidates, such as sitting or former legislators and those denied tickets by the BJP and Congress. Jogi counts on his personal appeal among the SC/ST communities to make a difference. “The JCC-BSP alliance isn’t a spoiler. We’re here to win...” Jogi said.
Senior Congress leader Ajay Maken, though, is unsure about Jogi’s potential to hurt the Congress. “His image was a problem. His walking out of Congress is helping us,” he said. Raman Singh agrees a pact with Jogi will make the BSP stronger, but insists that their impact will be limited to a few districts. “We hope he’ll hurt the Congress more,” Singh said.
Sunil Jangre, president of the Chhattisgarh Satnam Mahasangh in Takhpur block of Bilaspur, walked out of the Congress when Jogi decided to form his own party. The mahasangh is a sociocultural body of influential Satnami community, to which Jogi belongs, and has a dedicated army of 10-15 young men in every village. . NEW DELHI: In the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Madhya Pradesh sent just two Congress leaders, Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia, to Parliament. It was in a bypoll a year later that Kantilal Bhuria became the party’s third parliamentarian from the state.
The by-election was caused by the death of Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Dileep Singh Bhuria, who had defected from the Congress to give the saffron party its first-ever victory on the seat. Before that, the Congress had lost Jhabua only once, in the postEmergency 1977 polls. Dileep Singh was hugely popular in the area. But his daughter, Nirmala Bhuria, couldn’t make the grade against Kantilal, who defeated her by nearly 80,000 votes.
Three years down the line, the scenario has changed in JhabuaAlirajpur districts, part of the