Madhya Pradesh: Picking up the pieces

The Congress in Madhya Pradesh is banking on MSP promises and the tribal vote to make a dent in the BJP bastion.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during his ‘Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra’ in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh on March 9 | Photo Credit: A.M. FARUQUI

In Madhya Pradesh’s 29 Lok Sabha seats, the big question facing the Congress is whether it can prevent another sweep by the BJP, which raked in 28 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha election and 27 in 2014. The challenge is magnified by the lack of a young, dynamic leader with broad-based appeal cutting across the State and its disparate voter groups, stretching from the tribal-dominated Vindhya region to Bundelkhand bordering Uttar Pradesh, the Gwalior-Chambal region where the party still feels the absence of erstwhile Congress satrap Jyotiraditya Scindia, to the farmlands of Malwa-Nimar.

With Scindia out of the Congress’ stable, and Kamal Nath failing in his chief ministerial bid in the November 2023 Assembly election and then making headlines with his reported plans to cross over to the BJP, the only senior leader the party can promote for now is Digvijaya Singh. The party’s State president Jitu Patwari and former Union Minister Arun Yadav are two other key players.

Digvijaya Singh has been fielded from Rajgarh, which many observers say might witness a keen contest with the BJP. But Singh is prone to controversy. Following his candidature, a video went viral that showed the 77-year-old two-time former Chief Minister defending the consumption of beef and scoffing at the holy status accorded to cows by Hindus. The Congress alleged that the video, released by BJP legislator Amar Singh Yadav, was fake and demanded action against him. But it is a fact that Singh often makes remarks that are not in sync with the Congress’ soft-Hindutva transition in a State that has become the RSS laboratory for Hindutva politics.

Under former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the BJP’s rule became notorious for its “bulldozer politics”, with rampant razing of houses of those accused of damaging state property during protests. It earned Chouhan the sobriquet “bulldozer mama”. Those targeted were more often than not Muslims. In April 2022, the Madhya Pradesh Police shocked human rights defenders when it razed a kiosk belonging to a disabled person, Wasim Sheikh. Sheikh, who has no arms, was accused of stone-pelting. Worryingly, however, Chouhan’s actions found a degree of positive public reception.

In the 2023 Assembly election, the Congress, despite talks of a rebound, ended up with only 66 seats in the State’s 230-member Assembly. The BJP bagged 163. The vote share figures, however, offer a more nuanced picture. The Congress polled a respectable 40.45 per cent against the BJP’s 48.62 per cent. This is not an insuperable gap, and it gives the impression that the Congress still has the support base required to run a brisk campaign.

The BJP, on the other hand, was upset that it failed to retain the nearly 25 percentage points lead over the Congress that it registered in the 2019 general election (the BJP polled 58 per cent against the Congress’ 34.5 per cent). This was despite Chouhan’s drastic makeover from moderate politician to Hindutva hawk and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s carpet-bombing of the electoral landscape with his “guarantees”.

While one is not ready to bet on the Congress in terms of seats, it can safely be said that in terms of the popular vote there is a groundswell in its favour. This is an outcome of the Bharat Jodo Yatra that saw Rahul Gandhi reinvent himself as a fully committed, ready-to-slog politician. However, the BJP’s disproportionate advantage in terms of capital and organisational machinery remains a challenge.

To make matters more difficult for the Congress, the BJP has also, to an extent, assuaged the farmers’ anger that had caused it to lose the 2018 Assembly election. The Congress, with 114 seats to the BJP’s 108, had formed the government and it lasted until March 2020 when Scindia’s defection to the BJP brought the latter back to power. Farmers’ protests are once again making headlines, and the Congress has promised minimum support price (MSP) for farm produce if elected to power. Rahul Gandhi’s narrative-setting around the caste census with the aim of wooing the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) is also expected to boost the party’s mass appeal. Voting in Madhya Pradesh will take place in four phases: April 19 and 26 and May 7 and 13.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav at a roadshow during the Bhagoria festival at Ranapur on March 23, 2024. | Photo Credit: PTI

The real contest, say Congress insiders, is in the reserved constituencies and much will depend on the way the tribal vote swings. There is a perception that Rahul Gandhi’s obsessive pandering to OBCs is taking the focus off the Congress’ tribal outreach and assurances of economic welfare for all. In the 2023 Assembly election, of the 47 constituencies reserved for Scheduled Tribes, the BJP won 27. In fact, the BJP won 50 of the total 82 reserved seats as against 33 in 2018. The shift of the tribal vote also explains the BJP’s good showing in the Mahakoushal and Malwa-Nimar regions, where tribal people are present in significant numbers.

But the Congress is already in damage-control mode. On March 12, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge unveiled the party’s tribal manifesto, listing guarantees, including revival of the Scheduled Caste Plan and the Tribal Sub-Plan. Kharge emphasised that the Congress would protect tribal rights as well as their “zameen, jungle, and jal”.

Highlights

• In Madhya Pradesh’s 29 Lok Sabha seats, the big question facing the Congress is whether, or not, it can prevent another sweep by the BJP. The challenge is magnified by the lack of a young, dynamic leader with broad-based appeal cutting across the State and its disparate voter groups.
• With Jyotiraditya Scindia out of the Congress’ stable, and Kamal Nath failing in his chief ministerial bid in the November 2023 Assembly election and then making headlines with his reported plans to cross over to the BJP, the only senior leader the party can promote for now is Digvijaya Singh.

Tribal outreach

The Congress’ aggressive tribal outreach is the need of the hour at a time when the BJP is also courting the community hard, reminding it of the appointment of the first-ever tribal President, besides several tribal Cabinet members. In the run-up to the Assembly election last year, the BJP took a tough stance against religious conversion and harnessed the nationalistic tribal identity by felicitating tribal freedom fighters.

Abbas Hafeez Khan, the Congress’ State spokesperson, said the party expects to witness a consolidation of tribal votes. In an interaction with Frontline, Khan said: “The party’s relation with the tribal people is a very old one, while the BJP does not even have recognisable tribal leaders in Madhya Pradesh. The party is committed to tribal welfare at a time when the BJP is diluting the Forest Rights Act, which the UPA government enacted in 2006. We have given six guarantees to the community, including the Scheduled Caste Plan and Tribal Sub-plan, and the response to our campaign in the tribal belts is tremendous.”

According to Khan, the reason why the party lost Assembly elections despite widespread voter enthusiasm for it was the fumbling in caste equations, a less aggressive booth-level campaign, and, in some instances, poor candidate selection. “But we are being very careful this time,” he said.

According to Congress sources, the party is hoping to win Morena, Rajgarh, Dhar, Chhindwara, and Shahdol. In 2019, it won only Chhindwara, where Kamal Nath’s son Nakul Nath was the candidate. Apparently, party heavyweight Arun Yadav is eager to challenge Scindia in Guna, but the party’s internal squabbles and politics are coming in his way. Experts say that Arun Yadav will be a formidable challenger to Scindia, as Guna has around four lakh Yadav votes.

If the Guna bid does not materialise, Arun Yadav may be fielded in Vidisha against Chouhan. Chouhan was replaced by Mohan Yadav as Chief Minister after the party secured another term in office in December 2023. Former Union Minister Kantilal Bhuria has been fielded in Ratlam. The Congress has left the Khajuraho seat to its electoral ally, the Samajwadi Party.

In the 2018 Assembly election, a spectacular show in the farmer-dominated Malwa-Nimar region brought the Congress to power. But in 2023, the BJP was able to increase its tally from 28 to 47 in Malwa-Nimar’s 66 Assembly seats. The Congress’ decline was attributed to perceptions of the Kamal Nath government having reneged on loan-waiver promises. The current farmer protests offer the Congress a window to win back the trust of farmers.

But the political analyst Rasheed Kidwai, who is based in Bhopal, believes that the ongoing farmer protests may not upset the BJP’s game plan. Kidwai told Frontline: “PM Modi is extremely good at encashing electoral benefits but vis-a-vis the farm agitation, a resolution [of the issue] is unlikely to get him much electoral dividends. Paradoxical as it may sound, sometimes agitations like this help him build a ‘development versus agitation’ narrative that acts well with the great Indian middle class, quick to label agitation leaders with religious and regional identities.”

There are others who say a combination of MSP guarantees, promises of jobs, and courting the tribal communities can help take the Congress tally to five or six odd seats.