Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan exudes confidence that his government, while facing local anti-incumbency, will be able to deal with it by making changes to the candidate list and a campaign focused on development and welfare programmes.
Speaking to The Hindu, Mr. Chouhan, Chief Minister for nearly 18 years, said “every election is a challenge, and there is always some amount of local anti-incumbency, the solution to that is those who have too much anti-incumbency against them be removed. This is not an indiscriminate change in candidates, but after due assessment.”
He added that he was “confident” that he would be able to overcome any anti-incumbency because of the work of his government. He detailed that the State under him had seen an unprecedented increase in land under irrigation from 7.5 lakh hectares to over 47 lakh hectares now with a further push to take this number to 65 lakh hectares. “Apart from this, our focus on women’s empowerment, via Ladli Laxmi and now the Ladli Behena [income support of ₹1,000 per month to women between the ages of 23-60] along with our skilling programme for youth ‘seekho kamao’ [learn and earn] where we give ₹8,000-10,000 per youth as they work in various establishments to learn employable skills is an important intervention,” he said.
On being further quizzed about the perception of voter fatigue against the BJP after two decades in power in Madhya Pradesh, he said “anti-incumbency and these charges of fatigue were also there in 2008, but overcame them. People call me ‘Mama’ [maternal uncle] so I am not worried.”
Lately, Mr. Chouhan’s “Mama” (maternal uncle) image is being seen turning into a less than avuncular one, with the use of bulldozers in meting out punishments in certain cases. This seemingly contradictory fashioning of Mr. Chouhan’s image was being seen as a sign of his insecurity in the age of bulldozer-led hardline governments led by BJP leaders like Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh. Mr. Chouhan, however, dismisses any talk of a contradiction in his image as “Mama” and “bulldozer Shivraj”.
Law and order
“I became Chief Minister in 2006, and at that time a part of Madhya Pradesh was considered riddled by dacoits, and this was alive in popular culture as an image of the State. I made sure that tough action was taken then. If you recall a Congress leader, sitting minister of that time, Likhiram Kavre ji was beheaded by Naxalites [in 1999]. I did not allow Naxalism to grow in Madhya Pradesh once BJP was in power. The network of the Students Islamic Movement of India [SIMI], which grew under the Digvijaya Singh government, was finished by us, and even if SIMI members broke out of jail, they weren’t allowed to run too far. I have always been tough on law and order,” he said.
On his specific targeting of welfare programmes to women, he said it was something he thought deeply about from a young age. “In 1990, when I became an MLA, I started helping out families in challenging circumstances when daughters were to be married off. But I also wanted to find a way of ensuring that daughters are never considered a burden by their families, out of which came the “Ladli Laxmi” programme in 2006-07, of daughters being “Lakhpati” at birth. We connected this with education, at every stage of clearing levels of education, money would be deposited in their accounts. There was a lot of resistance, from my then Finance Minister etc, but we did it. The police resisted when I wanted to reserve 30% jobs in the State police for women, par maine woh dadagiri se karwaya [I pushed it through almost by force],” he added.
At present however, there are issues with regard to specific sections of society that are plaguing the BJP. The incident in Siddhi is one such where Mr. Chouhan stepped in for damage control, washing the feet of the victim from the tribal community and bulldozers were deployed as well. The result has not, however, been all that the BJP would have wished, with tribal and the Brahmin community both left aggrieved. “People can say whatever they want, the kind of incident it was left me in deep pain. It was absolutely at odds with civilised behaviour and I felt that main hi uska prayaschit karoon [that I myself atone for this incident],” he said.
The other controversy facing him is on recruitment for government jobs, with the Congress pointing to irregularities in the recruitment exams for Patwaris. “The Congress is raising this as they never did any recruitment in their time. I’ve said recruitment to one lakh jobs, 55,000 have happened without any issue. Nevertheless things should be above any suspicion, and therefore till the allegations are probed, recruitments are on hold. Everything should be transparently done,” Mr. Chouhan said.
