Ahead of Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls, why BJP is targeting Digvijaya Singh

If Jawaharlal Nehru is the central BJP leadership’s main hate figure, to be blamed for allegedly not letting India achieve its potential, in Madhya Pradesh it is Digvijaya Singh who is accused by the party in a similar way — even after 15 years of being in power.

While on his Jan Ashirwad yatra, a mass contact programme in the run-up to the assembly elections in November, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan does not miss an opportunity to blame Digvijaya Singh’s 10-year rule for keeping MP “backward”. The “accuse Digvijaya Singh of ruining the state” theme has been resorted to in 2008 and 2013 as well. Will it work again? Maybe not and here is why.

Chouhan’s charges against Digvijaya Singh revolve around the “Bijli Sadak Pani” (BSP) theme, worked out just before the 2003 elections. After a span of 15 years, the electorate wants to know what is being done for roads, for bijli (electricity) and for pani (water) in the state now, and is not interested in what was not done 15 years ago.

Of course, the BJP wants to drive home the point that if the Congress is elected again, the state will go back to the days when there was no bijli, sadak and pani. A part of the electorate may be reminded of the time when there were power outages but a new generation of voters has come into being that has not seen the Congress days.

The first-time voter was three years old when the last Congress government went out of power. It has heard about Congress days and if it’s mostly bad stuff, it may get swayed too, but there are also other issues the youth of today is facing. There is massive unemployment, especially in rural areas and the Congress has completely failed in making it an election issue but there is still some time.

The Congress too, on the other hand, surprisingly does not speak about the “achievements” of Digvijaya Singh’s 10-year rule. In the first term, there were innovations in the panchayat sector, grassroots organisations were strengthened and primary education was given a fillip. The result is while there are attacks on the Congress period, there is no defence in the form of what was done.

Perhaps the Congress does not want to talk about any of that time, afraid that it may give the BJP an upper hand. Strategically aware of this handicap, Digvijaya Singh too has stayed away from mainstream party work in the run-up to the polls. He is meeting Congress workers and leaders in an attempt to forge unity and to do away with factionalism, leaving running the organisation to “old friend” and “elder brother” Kamal Nath.

Point out any shortcoming in governance to a BJP elected representatative and chances are that he will immediately respond with whataboutery on the Digvijaya Singh years. A question on bad roads is met with “what about the time when there were no roads”, and a poser on the absolute collapse of civic infrastructure in all cities of the state that witness water logging after an hour of rain are met with “what about the time when there was no water” by BJP leaders. It is faintly comic.

Chouhan recently put forth three questions to Kamal Nath, all pertaining to the Congress years. Why weren’t there any roads during Congress rule; why was there a shortage of electricity at that time; and why wasn’t the Congress able to increase the area under irrigation? Even budget speeches every year compare the state’s finances to 2003, the year Digvijaya Singh demitted office. In Satna the other day for the jan ashirwad yatra, Chouhan went a step further. He accused Digvijaya Singh of hobnobbing with terrorists.

Digvijaya Singh responded by asking Chouhan to furnish proof of being a traitor, of arresting him. On July 26, he courted arrest in Bhopal demanding that he be booked for sedition and jailed. The police did not oblige him after which he said that he will file a defamation case against Chouhan. Digvijaya Singh is aware that he will be baited by the BJP into saying something that will be used against him. During the Narmada Parikrama he had said I will now not respond to everything. Will he stick by it?
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