By Dr. Gyan Pathak
Humiliating defeat in Karnataka in May 2023 assembly elections compelled the BJP leadership to give its electoral strategy a second thought for poll bound Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, and by the time the party readjusted its strategy, the nascent INDIA alliance increased its political challenges, necessitating further change in BJP’s national electoral strategy overriding the earlier planned strategy for the Vidhan Sabha elections.
BJP’s is yet to recover from the mental shock that it suffered on account of the Congress overthrowing the ruling BJP in Karnataka, despite its intensive Hindutva campaign for communal polarisation and PM Narendra Modi’s campaigning from the front. BJP has to face Congress in similar situations in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh where Vidhan Sabha elections are scheduled to be held by the end of 2023.
As in Karnataka, BJP has been suffering from incorrigible infighting. BJP leadership has always been taking pride in putting a PM or CM faces much before going to the electoral battlefields mocking the opposition that they are unable to even project a PM or CM faces. They are on their backfoot in case of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, and changed their strategy. They declared that BJP will contest Vidhan Sabha elections in these states under collective leaderships.
BJP leadership had earlier tried its best on some sort of compromise formula between the warring factions, however failed even after tweaking Pradesh BJP organisations. Sensing this, Central BJP leadership has now decided that election campaigns could not be left on the state leadership, but would be conducted under strict supervision of the Central BJP leadership.
The third important strategic shift the BJP leadership is trying to announce the lists of candidates much before the elections are announced by the Election Commission of India, hoping that the contesting candidates would get enough time for their campaigns and could pump in huge money into the electoral battlefield, which cannot be accounted as electoral expenses as per electoral rules. It would be advantage BJP they thought, since the Congress has not enough fund to match.
BJP leadership, however, knew that the release of list of candidates could not eradicate infighting. That is why they decided to release the first lists for only those constituencies that the party had lost in the last Vidhan Sabha elections held in 2018. The second lists are planned for the reserved constituencies, and the third and final lists for those which the party had won, so that infighting could be minimised. So far, fist lists for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh have been released which triggered large scale protests within the party and on the streets. The bitterness, the lists have generated in the party, had further compelled the BJP leadership to think over the strategy again, which has delayed declaration of the first list for Rajasthan. To overcome infighting BJP has planned to put large number of new faces in all the three states.
The next important strategy adopted by the BJP leadership is to organise large scale political events in the states to derive maximum benefit from public contact programmes – emphasizing on what the PM Modi led government at the Centre and BJP led government in Madhya Pradesh (without highlighting its own ruling CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan only to avoid escalation of infighting) has done and how the opposition ruled states of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh let the people of the states down to fuel anti-incumbency.
Various warring groups are put on yatras and public contact programmes in different regions to avoid infighting coming to the fore, however, they have been coming out in the open because one group does not invite the leaders of other groups. It is also other way round – leaders of one group are not taking part in the programmes of other groups or even when they participate, they lack necessary warmth visible to the electorate. Madhya Pradesh is the only state where BJP is ruling, and when leader like Uma Bharati was not invited in one of the programmes, she commented that the leadership has perhaps lost confidence.
Since the BJP leadership know the worse level of infighting, it has planned ‘triple engine’ strategy, under which large number of BJP leaders, activists, and people from the RSS clan would be brought from other states. More than 600 MLAs, apart from others, may be deputed for campaigns in these three states.
BJP has also strategized to derive benefit from the infighting from the Congress and has been trying to tempt their detractors to join BJP. They have open mind to even giving tickets to turncoats, or other benefit including in cash or posts. Playing the cast card, especially the OBC card is also in their agenda.
Though the target of winning back Rajasthan in ambitious, BJP has planned several yatras in Rajasthan which are led separately by leaders such as Vasundhara Raje, CP Joshi, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, and Satish Poonia. CM Ashok Gehlot led Congress government is attacked on alleged corruption and breakdown of law and order. PM Modi and other central BJP leaders would be participating to boost the morale of BJP rank and file.
Yatras in Madhya Pradesh are led by CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Jyotiraditya Scindia. Door-to-door campaign are also being carried out. Since the party is on very slippery ground in the state it relies on defection in Congress, as it has done in 2020 to overthrow the Congress government led by CM Kamal Nath. Party has set an ambitious target of winning 150 seats out of 230 in the state with increase in its voting share from 41 to 51 per cent.
Yatras in Chhattisgarh are also being organized against the ruling Congress to derive benefit from perceived anti-incumbency. However, as Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot, Congress CM Bhupesh Baghel is also popular for his welfare scheme putting BJP is tighter spot. BJP has set an ambitious target to win 65 seats out of 90, but infighting has made it difficult.
BJP is mainly relying on Modi wave, that the party thinks is blowing in their favour. Congress on the other hand has been emerging stronger with passage of time. BJP’s election strategy for these states may therefore see further alterations and tweaks in the next three months , for the contests are becoming closer and tougher for the party. (IPA Service)
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