By Shrinivas Sajja,
Shivaraj Singh Chouhan is the 3rd term Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh from Bharatiya Janata Party, a soft spoken humble farmer turned politician with a Master’s degree in Philosophy. Mr. Chouhan has also been elected five times to Lok Sabha and three times to state legislature.
During the most recent state assembly elections he has won from two constituency out which he never even campaigned once from his own constituency of Budhni during these elections. Madhya Pradesh State is developing pretty well under Mr. Chouhan’ s guidance with the average growth of GDP of MP being higher than that of India.
[TCN File photo]
Mr. Chouhan came back with a thumping victory even though a dozen of his ministers were involved in corruption scandals. Mr. Chouhan earned his fame by launching schemes that helped poor and women. He has relied on an excellent team of bureaucrats around him to formulate these schemes and has successfully launched/deputed them himself. Mr. Chouhan has done lot of work in the field of information technology, energy, agriculture and economic growth for the state but has also struggled with water crisis & corruption at the highest level but his recently and continuing victories has put him ahead of these struggles.
Mr. Chouhan on several occasions has been openly played by Mr.LK Advani, veteran BJP leader as an ideal candidate for BJP’s Prime Ministerial position, further challenging the growth of Gujarat over MP and Mr. Chouhan’ s humbleness over Mr. Modi’s publicity craving. Mr. Chouhan is also considered a close ally of Mr. Advani & Ms. Sushma Swaraj. In recent past, Mr. Advani was offered the Bhopal MP Lok Sabha ticket by Mr. Chouhan but the BJP election committee didn’t let him pick the seat of his choice Bhopal but asked him to contest from his existing seat of Gandhi Nagar from Gujarat for this election.
Ms. Swaraj would be contesting this elections from her current Constituency of Vidisha from MP. It is widely believed that, the BJP high command didn’t agree for Mr. Advani to contest from Bhopal as that will further strength Mr. Chouhan position in the party especially if the BJP does not win with a land slide margin enabling him to undergo a match making process with local/regional parties to have his dream come true.
If such a scenario occurs, number of seats from MP will be playing a greater role in the party that cannot have such strong political players like Mr. Chouhan, Mr. Advani & Ms. Swaraj at the center of this, who could possibly play a role for its presumed PM candidate evaporated in the political air, if they so wish. Especially, with a lot of regional parties shying away from BJP due to Mr. Modi’s controversial role in the communal riots in 2002 when he was presiding as Chief Minister of his home state of Gujarat.
Although Mr. Chouhan is a pretty well respected politician amongst other political parties as well, he does carry his fair share of failures and controversies. His previous term was over shadowed due to several of his ministers linked to huge corruption scandals & administration’s failure to take corrective actions against them. Few of these scandals that were directly pointed to Mr. Chouhan included the Sand & Mining scams.
It is also widely publicized that his most recent election was funded by MP mining mafia. Mr. Chouhan’ s controversial decisions included Surya Namaskar drive & introducing teachings of Bhagwad Gita in schools. He is also closely associated with the RSS where he started his political career as a Swayamsewak when a teenager. All these do not change the fact that Mr. Chouhan is currently very popular which is highly evident during the current campaign rallies with huge crowd turnout. He is the star campaigner for these rallies. Mr. Chouhan is most definitely liked more by Muslims over Mr. Modi as he is believed to be one of the most secular politician’s in BJP and he is frequently seen in front of Taj-ul-Masajid every Eid , greeting Muslims with a skull cap further adding to his popularity.
Putting all these odds together, Mr. Chouhan could play out just like the powerful queen in the game of chess for BJP to checkmate Congress and form a government at the center. Although, Mr. Chouhan has flatly denied his interest for the top job and has openly praised and supported Mr. Modi as his elder brother in the party. Yet, considering all above Mr. Chouhan is in a very strong position to be a contender for BJP’s Prime Ministerial position and a key figure that would attract a lot of attention post-election.