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Assembly polls 2023: A tale of two CMs with differing electoral fortunes
As both sought to ride back to power on overabundant welfarism, what exactly distinguished their campaign?
New Delhi Elections in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan were unusual in the sense that Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Ashok Gehlot, the incumbent chief ministers, turned them into referendums on their personae and policies. There was no tangible anti-incumbency against the leadership of either OBC (other backward classes ) leader. But one succeeded, the other failed.
While Chouhan scripted history for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), beating back an 18-year-long anti-incumbency to reignite popular connect with a thumping majority, the Congress’s Gehlot ended up repeating it. The latter failed to alter the desert state’s record of dumping regimes every five years. In the manner of a habituated enchantress, the electorate spurned his over-the-top overtures to walk the other way.
Having first assumed office in 2005, Chouhan was a four-time CM aiming to get lucky the fifth time, and he did. As both sought to ride back to power on overabundant welfarism, what exactly distinguished their campaign? At first glance, it was the BJP leader’s focussed messaging combined with the chemistry he engendered with his constituents.
Amid incessant talk and visible signs of him being cold-shouldered by the party’s central leadership, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the CM ventured to revive his “jaded” charisma by approaching the people directly. At one public meeting, he asked his audience: “Tell me whether I’m running a good or a bad government? Should the government continue; should mama become CM [again] or not?”
The emotional pitch worked. People responded resoundingly, and his appeal became one of the factors that have the BJP a majority bigger than it ever got. The beneficiary class Chouhan so assiduously nurtured among the women voters was too possessive of his cash-transfer-based affirmative action model. Elections were for them the time to reciprocate, to pay back for the goodies. Questions remain, however, on whether the incumbent will continue in office. His supporters have put him within striking distance. Yet the final call will be of the central command on continuing with him or effecting a generational shift.
The Congress, too, had on offer a bagful of sops to attract voters in a climate considered ripe for political change. That did not happen as the party ran a lethargic campaign; its communication strategy falling far short of the ruling party’s. It couldn’t also capitalise on the deep resentment in the BJP cadres against Chouhan. Their complaint was against a cabal around the CM and his perfunctory care for party workers in his fourth term.
In retrospect, it appears the BJP, which is a way more disciplined party than the Congress, could mollify disenchanted foot soldiers with the help of its ideological fountainhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The formidable challenge it eventually staged in tandem with the Sangh neutralised the voters’ fatigue.
Congress’s shortcomings
For its part, the Congress lacked matching logistics and a leader with Chouhan’s people’s skills. Its CM face, Kamal Nath’s public outreach did not have the kind of personal appeal his principal rival marshalled to cover up his myriad shortcomings, ranging from graft in government recruitments to paper leaks that had the youth up in arms.
Lauded by needy women across urban-rural and caste divides, the Ladli Behna monthly cash-transfer scheme -- a brainchild of Chouhan’s — firewalled the BJP against the Congress’s attacks. If at all, the Congress’s pledge to restore the old pension scheme had only a niche appeal among government employees. In a nutshell, the people went with the incumbent’s on-going delivery against the alternative’s promise!
Gehlot’s solo flight
Given his soft, accessible persona, the welfare schemes Gehlot thought up, albeit late in his tenure, had resonance across the state. What actually did him in, was the “I, me, myself” campaign he choreographed to retain the CM’s office on making the party win on his face.
In that pursuit, he fought and got tickets for a whole lot of sitting legislators who had saved his government during Sachin Pilot’s 2020 rebellion. That cost him dear in the face of the anti-incumbent mood in an election contested on local issues in several constituencies. Another debilitating factor was his failure to tie-up with smaller parties.
The winners’ magic which eluded the CM, who takes pride in being an amateur magician, as much had its genesis in his self-promoting solo act. “The real trick would’ve been the CM going around hand-in-hand with his former deputy,” remarked a party insider. The ‘wondrous spectacle’ could’ve built the perception of a united Congress, addressing at once the ruffled sentiments of Pilot’s Gujjar clansmen over him being denied the CM’s office.
That never happened. The community which is electorally influential in many assembly seats of eastern Rajasthan remained alienated. On Rahul Gandhi’s intervention, Pilot was eventually provided a chopper in the final leg of the campaign post-Diwali. But, by then, the BJP had covered huge ground, leaving the Congress far behind. It clearly did not have the discipline, the unity, and the work culture required to defeat a behemoth that’s the BJP.
Looking back, it seems the Congress deserved the defeat it faced in the two big Hindi heartland battlegrounds. Insult got added to injury when it slipped massively in the presumed “safe” state of Chattisgarh.
