BAGHEL HITS THE GROUND RUNNING
THE CHHATTISGARH CHIEF MINISTER BEGINS HIS INNINGS WITH A FLOURISH, BUT HIS AGGRESSIVE APPROACH COULD UNSETTLE THE ESTABLISHMENT
BBooks, covering a range interests and subjects, in English as well as in Hindi, line the two shelves behind Bhupesh Baghel’s sprawling desk in the chief minister’s Mantralaya chamber in Naya Raipur. The Men Who Ruled India, the seminal work by Indian Civil Service Officer Philip Mason, occupies pride of place. Mandatory reading at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) in Mussoorie, it is an account of how a handful of ICS men ruled over the entire Indian subcontinent. In a reversal of roles, it is the top bureaucracy in Chhattisgarh, all-powerful in the 15 years preceding the change in government, who are now running scared in the Baghel dispensation.
Having delivered 68 seats for the Congress in the 90-member Vidhan Sabha, the PCC president was more than a deserving choice for the chief ministership of the state. One of his first tasks on assuming office has been to remove officers closely identified with the previous regime. The chief secretary and the DGP were among the first to go. “The bureaucracy is meant to serve the people, but in Chhattisgarh, they were serving four or five people. This has to change,” he explains.
Baghel’s intentions may be benign, but it is generating the impression that he is getting rid of even meritorious officers, if they happen to have been appointed by the previous government. It has left the bureaucracy in the state edgy, unsure of who might be targeted next. “The CM needs to restore the morale of the civil services,” says a senior IAS officer at the Mantralaya. “After all, it’s the same lot he has to get work out of.” Baghel’s ‘crusade against corruption’ has prompted former chief minister Raman Singh to term it a ‘badlapur ki rajneeti’ instead of the ‘badlaav ki rajniti’ the Congress had promised.
Two other promises of the Congress—waiving farm loans and procuring paddy at Rs 2,500 per quintal—are under way. Baghel can claim credit for pulling off loan waivers more smoothly than the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh. The loan waiver in Chhattisgarh has been universal, unlike in MP where many categories of farmers have been left out. A budgetary provision has already been made for the entire amount to be written off.
However, the impact of the waiver will be felt only in the next Kharif crop cycle, in June 2019. “Banks will not have funds to give more credit,” says an official.
There is also a catch in the paddy procurement. As per an MoU with the Union government, states following a decentralised model of procurement cannot procure foodgrains at prices above the MSP decided by the Centre. In case they do, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) will refuse to lift stocks in excess of the PDS requirement of the state. The Chhattisgarh government not only wants to buy at Rs 2,500 per quintal, but has also promised to pay a retrospective bonus on paddy purchases for 2015 and 2016, which would cost the state exchequer around Rs 5,000 crore. In case the central government refuses to lift paddy stocks, Chhattisgarh will have to figure out on its own how to deal with the surplus. It may help paint the Union government as antifarmer and gain political mileage, but it will not help the state get funds on an immediate basis.
Financially, Chhattisgarh is not really on a weak wicket. The state’s budget for 2018-19 is Rs 83,000 crore and the state’s own revenue is about Rs 32,000 crore. But the bigticket expenses in the form of promises made in the manifesto will place a burden on the exchequer and affect capital expenditure on infrastructure and on maintenance of assets.
At this juncture, Baghel will have to take a call on whether to go ahead with prohibition. Excise from the sale of alcohol contributes about
Rs 5,000 crore—a substantial portion of the state’s revenue—something it can ill afford to lose at this stage. Sources say a middle path may well be considered where rather than a total ban, there will be further restrictions on the sale of alcohol.
Baghel will also have to decide whether he wants to continue with the existing policy on tackling Maoism,
which remains an enduring challenge for the tribal state. The current approach has resulted in securing territory where the writ of the state did not apply earlier, and any major deviation from the current policy will risk frittering away the gains made over the years. Baghel has to ensure that any change in strategy doesn’t end up helping the rebels regroup.
On the political front, with the Congress winning a three-fourths majority in the assembly poll, expectations that Baghel can repeat the performance in the Lok Sabha election are high. Officially, Baghel says he is targeting a win in all 11 seats and has begun the process of selecting candidates. The Congress expects the loan waiver and paddy procurement to translate into votes in the general election. Party president Rahul Gandhi is expected to attend programmes in the state to mark the fulfilment of the ‘promise’. North Chhattisgarh seems secure for the Congress as far as the LS is concerned, but the real test for the new Congress leadership will be to win in the plains of central Chhattisgarh where the bulk of the seats are. It is also here that the caste arithmetic of OBC communities and Satnamis is the most complicated. Baghel will also have to find ways to blunt the advantages the BJP expects to reap from the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi, announced for small and marginal farmers in the budget.
People who know him characterise the CM as a ‘fighter’, the very trait that has made him valuable to the party leadership. Baghel did not cow down when the previous government slapped a case against him in the pornographic CD issue. Instead, he refused to seek bail, seizing the advantage after going to jail. He and the late Mahendra Karma were the only two Congress leaders who took on Ajit Jogi when the ex-CM was all-powerful in the party. But his critics also accuse Baghel of being divisive, holding him responsible for the alienation of a section of party leaders. Already, there is talk of the Brahmins—who have always played a politically powerful role in the region— feeling marginalised. Among the challenges for Baghel is to address this perception, become more accommodating and open to opposing views and take political rivals along with him. It was something former CM Raman Singh had mastered. Did it help? Raman Singh won three terms.