Uneasy relationship between Congress, SP in Madhya Pradesh | N.D.Sharma

Published on 30-07-2008 In General

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Uneasy relationship between Congress, SP in Madhya Pradesh

On the political front, it is unusually quiet in Madhya Pradesh where the Assembly elections are due in less than four months. Either chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan is active, doling out promises to various sections of the people and making adjustments and re-adjustments of the bureaucrats in the field, or the ruling party's youth wing, BJYM, is in the news because of its haughty activities. The other day it pasted a poster at the railway station warning the people against travelling on a certain day by a particular train as the BJYM activists would be travelling by that train for a rally. The BJYM activists had a scuffle even with Chauhan in a village in Sagar district because the chief minister could not spare time to listen to their grievances.

That apart, the ruling party is going ahead quietly with the preparations for the elections. It has constituted a committee to prepare the party's election manifesto. The committee is headed by Thavarchand Gehlot, MP and a Dalit leader. It is reaching out to the youth and the women to enlist their support. It is paying special attention to the preparations of the voters' lists, occasionally with so much 'enthusiasm' that an NGO had to knock on the doors of the Madhya Pradesh High Court in Jabalpur with a prayer to check the arbitrary deletion and addition of names from the lists at the behest of a BJP leader.

The BJP has a dismal record of governance in Madhya Pradesh. The crime and corruption have seen an alarming increase in the past four and a half years. In the 2003 election campaign, the BJP had promised to end the power shortages within 100 days of its coming to power. As the party is completing its five-year term, the State is facing the same power crisis, if not worse. It has failed to ensure potable drinking water to the people in spite of hundreds of thousands of rupees having been spent on projects named after mythological characters.

Still, the question is who is going to dislodge the BJP? The Congress party, which aspires to replace the BJP at Vallabh Bhavan (the seat of power) after the elections, gives the impression as if being afflicted with the arthritis. It gets up in jerks on some issue affecting the public at large and then slumps down for a considerable time. It has been failing the people miserably. The party's high command seems to be watching the developments in Madhya Pradesh with a singular impassiveness.

It is nearly six months that the party high command appointed the chairman of the election campaign committee for Madhya Pradesh. But the campaign committee has not yet been constituted. PCC chief Suresh Pachauri was permitted to constitute the party's working committee, but his choice of office-bearers and members (some of whom with questionable credentials) created more dissensions in the party which was already a house divided.

The new political equations at the Centre in the wake of the trust vote in Lok Sabha have created their own problems in Madhya Pradesh.

Some of the Samajwadi Party leaders of the State have been rabidly anti-Congress (though, no less anti-BJP) and they are bound to feel less than comfortable in the new surroundings.

The Samajwadi Party, though much smaller in numbers and influence, has been attuned to the impending elections for quite some time, identifying the constituencies and going through the process of selecting candidates. The Congress, whenever it gets ready for the elections, will have to haggle with the Samajwadi Party whether there is a formal electoral alliance between the two parties or an informal adjustment. And that is not likely to be a pleasant task for both of them. Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh has already hinted at an electoral arrangement between the two parties with the rider that the SP would have to see if the "reciprocity" of the Congress matched with the SP's expectations. It is not clear if the Samajwadi Party will like to contest the next election also on its past slogan of "kapda, roti sasta ho; dava padhai muft ho" (cheaper food and clothes; medicines and education free). In that case, how will it leave out the contribution of the Congress-led Central government to the increase in prices of essential commodities?

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is the only party which is going about its business quietly and smoothly, away from the media glare. Ever since it sprang a surprise in Uttar Pradesh, it has been holding meetings and conventions at different parts of the State, aimed at wooing different communities, those belonging to the upper castes included. Now and then the BSP ministers of Uttar Pradesh, belonging to various castes, had been visiting Madhya Pradesh to guide the local leaders. They scrupulously avoid big cities.

How the BSP has been able to penetrate the interior of the State is illustrated by its impressive victory in a civic election in Balaghat district. As the BSP had decided not to involve itself in the local elections, its local leader Asha Warkare contested as an independent for the Malajkhand Municipality chairperson's post and won by 2,200 votes, relegating the Congress and BJP candidates to the second and third places, respectively. Hitherto, the BSP was known to have areas of its influence only in the districts bordering Uttar Pradesh.

Unlike in other parties, the BSP in Madhya Pradesh does not have a recognisable leader. It is the workers that matter, as Uttar Pradesh industries minister and in charge of Madhya Pradesh affairs Badshah Singh observed during one of his visits to Madhya Pradesh. He defined the objective of his party, if it came to power, as the infusion of a feeling of equality among various sections of the people by putting an end to the dynastic and feudal politics. The rhetoric appeals to the very large number of Dalits and tribals in the countryside who had been oppressed for ages, and are still being oppressed, by the feudal lords.

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