Some party leaders and workers are staying away from campaigning.
New Delhi: The Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government, which needs to win on nine of the 27 seats going to bypolls in Madhya Pradesh in order to stay in power, is facing the double trouble of party leaders and workers staying away from campaigning in some seats and indulging in sabotage in some others.
The dates for the bypolls are yet to be announced. They are likely to be held with the Bihar polls that are scheduled to take place in October-November.
BJP workers and leaders, especially in the Gwalior region, where 16 of these 27 seats are located, are not happy with the fact that they are being asked to campaign for the loyalists of their former arch-rival and now a BJP Rajya Sabha member, Jyotiraditya Scindia, who had joined the BJP after bringing down the Kamal Nath-led Congress government in the state in March this year. One of the assurances that Scindia and his group of MLAs had taken from the BJP before changing their allegiance was that they will be given tickets to contest the Assembly bypolls.
While the Congress has announced its first list of 15 candidates, the BJP is waiting for the Election Commission to announce the poll dates before coming out with its list, which, as per Bhopal-based senior party leader Hitesh Bajpai, was a mere formality as the party was going to give the tickets mostly to sitting MLAs (Scindia loyalists who have joined the BJP). However, a section within the party said that the announcement of the list was taking time as “too many egos and insecurities” needed to be handled and placated.
In many seats, rivals for decades are now in a position where they have to work together. This “change”, according to BJP leaders, is not being accepted by leaders and workers in a “few” seats.
A BJP functionary from one of the seats going to polls in the Gwalior region said: “I am not going to sabotage his chance, but I will not campaign for him. In the 2015 elections, I had campaigned against him and told the voters about the ill-deeds of this man and now I am being asked to go to the same voters and tell them to vote for him. I had attacked Scindia while pointing out the ‘loots’ that his family had carried out; now I am supposed to seek votes for him. It is not possible. The leadership from Bhopal has warned us that if we do not work actively, we will face action, but then it will have to take action against thousands of workers across these 27 seats.”
According to a party leader, internal sabotage carried out on the direction of top established state leaders was also very possible as these top leaders were not in a position to explicitly express their anger and hence, are likely to secretly damage the prospects of the contesting MLAs, owing allegiance to Scindia, in order to protect their own turf.
“If Scindia’s MLAs win from this seat, then the ‘hold’ that the Union Minister has enjoyed all these years too will wane. Hence this situation,” said a party functionary active in the Gwalior region, while referring to a sitting Union Minister’s problem with Scindia’s men.
Hitesh Bajpai, who has been the state media in-charge in the past, however, strongly denied that the party workers and leaders were not campaigning due to the Scindia factor. “This is a totally false notion and assessment. Ours is a cadre-based party and the entire cadre is working towards the objective that we have been given. I am a part of the election coordination committee. Day and night, we are working at the booth committee and morcha committee levels and taking feedback from them and devising strategies. All our poll-related programmes are taking place at the ground level. So, I cannot go with the assessment that the party workers are not working,” Bajpai told The Sunday Guardian.
The anger and the prospect of Scindia’s loyalists losing on crucial votes due to not-so-enthusiastic party workers and senior leaders, have prompted the central leadership to intervene.
Party general secretary B.L. Santosh, in a meeting with state leaders in the second week of September in Delhi, told the leaders about the feedback that he had received about party workers and leaders not coming out to campaign in seats where it was certain that a Scindia loyalist would be fielded by the BJP.
This anger is not just among the ordinary party workers, but even former and present ministers in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan Cabinet are staying away from participating in the campaign, with many citing the spread of Covid-19 in their region for their limited campaigning.
A Bhopal-based party leader told The Sunday Guardian that the “resistance” to Scindia and his men was natural and it will go away only with time. “Scindia was the face of the Congress in the state for almost 15 years. The politics of BJP leaders, especially those who are based in Gwalior region, revolved around targeting Scindia. Now, they are being asked to seek support for him and his candidates. So, it is natural that they will be upset and reluctant to come out in his support. However, in the end, for every BJP worker, the party’s decision is supreme and we will win at least 20 seats. And don’t forget that the Congress, too, has given tickets to several leaders who have crossed over from the BJP, and even they are not being accepted by the Congress workers,” he said.
Premchand Guddu, who has been given the ticket from Sanwer seat, has been a Congress Lok Sabha MP from Ujjain before he left the party and joined the BJP in November 2018. He rejoined the Congress in May this year. Kanhaiyalal Agrawal, who will be contesting from Bamori, was a BJP minister from 2008 and 2013 and joined the Congress in July this year. Phool Singh Baraiya, who will be contesting from the Bhaner seat, was the state president of the BSP some years ago. Later he moved to the BJP, only to join the Congress in March 2019.
Out of these 27 seats, the BJP needs to win at least nine seats to reach the majority of 116 members in the 230-seat Madhya Pradesh Assembly. The party presently has 107 MLAs, while the Congress has 92 MLAs and it will have to win all the 24 seats to form government in Madhya Pradesh again.