Madhya Pradesh polls: Can Congress’ saffron pitch defeat Shivraj Singh Chouhan?
BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is seeing an unlikely challenge from the Congress ahead of the assembly polls, likely later this year.
A brigade of state Congress leaders, led by “Shiv bhakt” Rahul Gandhi, has promised gaushalas, or cow shelters, in every gram panchayat. They have also pledged to redevelop the “Ram Van Gaman Path”, a mythical route taken by Lord Rama during his 14-year exile, as narrated in Valmiki’s Ramayana.
Early this week, a number of hoardings showing Rahul Gandhi as a worshipper of Lord Shiva, in the backdrop of Kailash-Mansarovar, were seen at various places in Bhopal. The Congress president had sought the blessings of Hindu priests in the city’s Lalghati Square before embarking on an 18-km roadshow. “Shiv bhakt Rahul Gandhi ka jhilon ki nagri Bhopal mein swagat hai (Devotee of Lord Shiva, Rahul Gandhi, is welcome to the city of lakes, Bhopal),” reads one such hoarding. Rahul Gandhi had just returned from a 12-day pilgrimage to Kailash-Mansarovar, a sacred place for the Hindus.
Welcome to the majoritarian politics playing out in Madhya Pradesh, a state ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2003. The state is likely to see assembly polls in November-December. It has a population of 7.26 crore, according to the 2011 Census, out of which 90.9% are Hindus and 6.6% are Muslims. To woo the Hindus, the Congress has started a campaign with saffron hues.
For a party that has largely stayed away from overt religious symbolism, the Congress is now treading a path that has mostly been the bastion of the BJP and other right-leaning parties. During the Gujarat election last year, Rahul Gandhi had included temple visits in his schedule for rallies and roadshows. The BJP returned to power in Gujarat but with a reduced majority. This was seen in some quarters as a result of the Congress’s efforts bearing fruit. Now, a more aggressive strategy on similar lines seems to be in place in Madhya Pradesh.
The Election Commission is expected to announce the poll dates in the first week of next month for Madhya Pradesh as well as Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Mizoram and Telangana. But the Congress, it seems, has already sharpened its campaign focus. “The BJP thinks it’s the sole selling agency of Hinduism,” says former central minister and state Congress chief Kamal Nath. “Why should the BJP question me if I visit a temple? We are not anti-religion. We are more religious than those in the BJP.”
He recently made the promise about cowshelters in every gram panchayat (the state has over 23,000 panchayats). He emphasised that the conditions of the existing ones were pathetic. A week ago, news spread that six cows had died in a state-run gaushala in Rajgarh, 150 km north of Bhopal. This prompted the chief minister’s office to ask for a report from the district magistrate concerned. It turned out that two cows, not six, had died. The district magistrate also quoted the post-mortem reports to establish the deaths were not due to starvation, as was reported in a section of media. Hindus, at least a large section, consider cows sacred. It has become an emotive issue. With elections around the corner, the death of even one cow in a staterun gaushala makes headlines. It has become more so in Madhya Pradesh after Nath, an astute politician and nine-time member of Parliament from Chhindwara, has left no stone unturned to make the Congress look like a pro-Hindu party.
There are 604 active cow shelters in the state housing 1,53,486 cattle. Between 2016-17 and 2017-18, for which the state animal husbandry department’s data is available, the state government has extended a grant of Rs 45 crore to these facilities. Then there are smaller cow shelters being run by temple trusts, as the one visited by this writer near Vidisha. The gaushala, which has 21 cattle in a facility on the banks of the Betwa, a tributary of Yamuna, did not ask for any aid from the government, say its caretakers.
About 56 km to the south, in Bhopal, chief minister Chouhan is ready to counter the Congress. “The Congress recalls cows, Bhagwan Rama and Shivji only during elections. I have no problem with that, except the fact that they do it only because there’s an election,” says the CM.
But indications are the Congress’s Hindutva pitch is certainly annoying the BJP, particularly when the saffron party is already executing a number of projects on religious lines. For example, the Congress’s promise to redevelop the Ram Van Gaman Path came as a shocker to the government, as it was already working on it. A panel of bureaucrats, academics and curators had submitted a report in 2007 on how to develop a tourist circuit linking the places Lord Ram had supposedly visited during his exile. A number of temples and tourist places in eight districts connected to the circuit received liberal funding. One of those sites, Chitrakoot, received Rs 24 crore in 2008-09 and another religious circuit in Ujjain was given Rs 12 crore. A Rs 65-crore proposal to redevelop places such as Kamadgiri and Van-Devi was sent to the Union tourism ministry in January. That project is still pending, though.
The BJP is aware that the Congress’ lastminute pitch to position itself as a pro-Hindu party will not hold much water among the electorates. But what is haunting the saffron party is the potential of the Congress strategy to blunt its time-tested formula of subtly polarising voters to give them an election advantage. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s kabristan-shamshan (graveyard-cremation ground) jibe in February 2017, accusing the then Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav of discriminating on the basis of religion, helped the BJP consolidate Hindu voters. In the UP polls, the Congress was only a junior ally of Yadav’s Samajwadi Party. But the BJP clinched a two-thirds majority to come to power in Lucknow after 15 years.
Nath’s gamble of resorting to soft-Hindutva in the state is clear: it is not meant to beat the BJP on who’s a better Hindu. Instead, it is mainly to neutralise a potential religious divide that will make the Congress seem to be a party for Muslims. For Nath and the Congress, the real challenge will be to whip up anti-incumbency sentiments among farmers, small traders and unemployed youth. It will also have to cobble together an anti-BJP alliance. The Congress got a major blow on Thursday when Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati unilaterally announced the names of 22 candidates for the state election.
Congress’ Hindutva Gambit
Promise: To set up gaushala (cow shelters) in each of 23,000 Gram Panchayats in the state
Status: Cow Conservation Board (Gau Samvardhan Board) set up in 2004 There are 604 active gaushalas in the state sheltering 1,53,486 cattle
State grants for Gaushalas:
Rs 20 cr in 2016-17
Rs 25 cr in 2017-18
* An additional Rs 10 per day is given for maintenance of every cow seized by police during transportation raids
Promise: Redeveloping of the Ram Van Gaman Path along the mythical route taken by Ram during his 14-year exile
Status: A 11-member panel of bureaucrats, academics, curators submitted a report in 2007 on how to develop the circuit
Temples and tourist places in 8 districts are beneficiaries
Chitrakoot (where Ram, Sita and Lakshman spent a few months, according to mythology) received Rs 24 crore in 2008-09 Ujjain religious circuit received Rs 12 crore between 2011 and 2014.
A Rs 65-crore proposal to redevelop places like Kamadgiri and Van-Devi sent to Union ministry of tourism in January this year; no decision has been taken on this.
For the BJP, the campaign is likely to revolve around the progress seen in the last 15 years, when the party has ruled the state, vis-a-vis the performance of the Digvijaya Singh government of 1993-2003. It is constantly reminding the people about the poor state of roads and electricity connectivity in 2003, and how bijli-sadak-pani (power-roads-water) became a political slogan that toppled the then Congress government.
But Nath claims the state’s voters are not just disenchanted with the BJP, they are feeling cheated. ¡§Every section of society in the state is in distress. Farmers have been taken for a ride. Small and medium industries have failed to recover from demonetisation and GST. Then there are scams in Vyapam (state’s professional examination board), e-tendering and sand mining.
As both camps battle for the state nicknamed the Heart of India, it remains to be seen if the core issue would be tied to religion for the 4.9 crore voters.
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