‘Once considered Baniyabrahmin party, BJP is now a party for poor’
The Bharatiya Janata Party’s national vice president Prabhat Jha is a key backroom asset in his party’s bid to retain power in Madhya Pradesh as the state gears up for elections on November 28. A former state unit chief, he was also in charge of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s Jan Ashirwad Yatra, a rally that was meant to cover all 230 assembly constituencies. Edited excerpts from an interview:
Digvijaya Singh is confident of the Congress’s victory in MP. What’s your take?
He’s a big leader of his party. But people consider the Congress to be an election party while the BJP is committed to serve the electorate. Digvijaya was there even in 2008 and 2013, but his party didn’t win. The Congress may look united but its (leaders) are pulling in opposite directions.
Digvijaya Singh said that Shivraj Singh Chouhan is isolated within the BJP. No senior BJP leader took part in his Jan Ashirwad Yatra.
I was in charge of that Yatra. We decided not to call anyone in consultation with our state unit chief Rakesh Singh and campaign committee member Narendra Singh Tomar. But on September 25, all our leaders including the PM and party president Amit Shah were on the stage during an interregnum in the Yatra. The Congress is more into levelling charges than putting hard work on the ground.
There’s a perception that the BJP might be ahead in urban centres, but the Congress is giving it a tough fight in rural areas. The Congress may have been the party of villages in the past, but it isn’t any longer. The BJP was once considered a Baniya-brahmin party. It is now a party for the poor. We’re providing rice, wheat and salt to 5.5 crore people at the rate of ₹1 per kilogram.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi disagrees. He calls you a suitboot ki sarkar that only works for industrialists and big business whom you helped escape the country rather than repay the astronomical amounts they owe banks.
If I was in Rahul’s place as Congress president, would I have survived after losing elections to parliament and 14 state assemblies? Nobody takes him seriously. Recently, on a visit to Indore he called Kamal Nath by his first name in public. Ye dosti ka kaun sa paimana hai (what’s this yardstick of familiarity) that he calls a man his father’s age by his first name; he doesn’t even call him Kamal ji. That’s what I call “college campus culture” of politics.
One did not previously witness the kind of disenchantment now seen with your party. Would you still say there’s no antiincumbency even after 15 years of uninterrupted BJP rule in Madhya Pradesh?
I’m not saying that. We won in 2003 on anti-incumbency against the Congress. Churchill once said governments are about laying down policies and maintaining law and order. Shivraj Singh Chouhan has defined it differently by taking the light of prosperity to the poorest of the poor. All his schemes are inclusive and touch various aspects of life. Over two crore people have benefited. Their support is enough for us to win again.
Would you agree that your tally here will decline as it happened in Gujarat, even if you win the election?
The Congress is surprised by our uninterrupted rule for 15 years; that a humble son of a farmer is there for 13 years and their Raja-maharajas are unable to do anything. Mark my words. You shouldn’t be shocked if we do better than we did in the previous polls. Come with me to the villages to judge the popular mood.
I’ve toured the countryside and heard voices that must cause you worry. Maybe you know that, but are unwilling to concede as a party person. Some degree of anti-incumbency is natural after 15 years, but much of that is articulated by Congress supporters, not the people in general.
There’s talk in your party that Shivraj may be shifted to Delhi if the BJP returns to power in 2019 to make room for (Kailash) Vijayvargiya to take over.
I go by Amit ji’s (BJP national president Amit Shah) announcement in Ujjain that the elections will be fought under Shivraj’s leadership and he’d be working for MP’S development for the next five years. I can’t say more. Your question is too big for a small worker like me (to answer).