The BJP's Plan To Combat Anti-Incumbency In Madhya Pradesh

Shivraj Singh Chouhan is the longest-serving Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Chief Minister with a tenure of over 16 years and hence anti-incumbency against his government is quite natural.

It is believed that this anti-incumbency led to BJP's defeat in the 2018 assembly elections.

However, when this correspondent visited the state a few months later, in April 2019, found that the anti-incumbency was against the local MLAs and not the chief minister (CM).

The situation is more or less the same in the state now also. And hence, the BJP has decided to contest the upcoming assembly elections with Chouhan as the CM face.

"Even if someone is too good, people get bored of him," political satirist Bhupendra from Dewas told Swarajya suggesting that Chouhan's face is not enough and the BJP needs to ride on its welfare schemes to win the elections.

He believes that Ladli Behna Yojana is "a good card" that the Madhya Pradesh CM has played "as 50 per cent of the voters are female".

This scheme, which hands out cash doles of Rs 1,000 every month to over 1.25 crore poor women, was started in March 2023 and the first installment was deposited in June 2023.

Now it is expected that this amount will be raised to Rs 1,250 per month from October onwards and Chouhan is likely to announce this update on the occasion of Rakshabandhan (31 August) as a gift.

Not just this, the Madhya Pradesh CM has also promised to scale up the dole to Rs 3,000 per month if he retains power in the assembly elections. However, Chouhan says that this scheme is not aimed at elections, instead is for women's empowerment.

"If Congress fails to communicate its five guarantees to the people, Ladli Behna can give a good lead of votes to the BJP," Pranjal Gandhi, a RSS worker from Morena told Swarajya.

It should be noted that one of the five guarantees of Congress is a monthly payout of Rs 1,500 to women which is currently higher than in Chouhan's scheme.

Another attempt by the Madhya Pradesh government is for wooing the youth. To deal with the problem of unemployment, Chouhan has given one lakh jobs and says that is in the process of giving another 50,000.

Along with it, Learn and Earn scheme was launched in June 2023, under which the youth gets an allowance of Rs 8,000-Rs 10,000 while learning skills. The aim is to develop entrepreneurs and job creators.

Chouhan's other effort is to please state government employees. Their Dearness Allowance was raised by 4 per cent, to 42 per cent which is in line with the central government. The hike would come into effect retrospectively from January 2023.

Contractual employees too were assured benefits similar to permanent government employees like job regularisation, equal salary, gratuity, health insurance and leave facilities.

Political Actions

The Madhya Pradesh CM has been asserting that the welfare schemes are not to combat anti-incumbency, as it could be countered by dropping MLAs facing “voter anger”.

“Will assess the situation and drop those against whom there is anti- incumbency,” said Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in a recent interview.

An internal survey conducted by the state BJP found that the performance of 40 per cent of sitting BJP MLAs was below expectations, potentially affecting their chances of receiving tickets for the upcoming elections.

However, it is unlikely that all of them will be dropped because Amit Shah has clarified that winnability will be the main criterion in ticket distribution and hence, many non-performers may get a ticket because of caste equations or their influence.

In the 2018 elections, when BJP had 165 MLAs, more than 70 were found to be non-performing, still, tickets of only 54 MLAs were cut and a total of more than 100 new faces contested the elections. However, BJP couldn't get a majority then.

The ticket distribution process is expected to be tighter this time, with 'Team Amit Shah' and central leadership themselves monitoring it. Those who couldn't win in the 2018 elections will not get tickets, said a BJP worker.

Will This Work?

The BJP workers in the state told this correspondent that the current situation in the state shows that the Congress and the BJP have equal chances of winning.

A few even told that none of the parties is likely to get a majority, instead one will have to form the government by allying with smaller parties or independent MLAs.

When this correspondent asked Gopal Singh Kushwah, a BJP worker in Gwalior about the preparations, he said, "There is nothing and all BJP workers are sitting at home".

He explained that the workers are fed up with infighting among the BJP leaders and don't know whom to follow and hence, have decided to be passive for now.

However, he expressed hope that things might improve in the coming days as the party is gearing up its election machinery.

It is worth noting that the BJP started poll preparations in July, only with Amit Shah visiting the state and narrating a plan last week.

The appointments of poll in-charge Bhupendra Yadav, co-in-charge Ashwini Vaishnaw and the convenor of the election management panel Narendra Singh Tomar are also recent.

The wheels have just come on track now, speeding is yet to begin. We will discuss in the next article how these appointments will affect election equations.