New battle, old issues

Saba Naqvi

As a resident of Delhi with family links to Uttar Pradesh (an ancestral village a few hours drive from Faizabad-Ayodhya), I keep an eye on convolutions over the Ram Mandir issue that the RSS chief, the VHP and the BJP president and cadre have been getting so exercised over lately.

Congress exertions to prove Hindu credentials in Madhya Pradesh, of which Chhattisgarh was once a part of, could also create an illusion that some-how Hindutva issues matter on the ground in the three election- bound states.

They don't. At least not in Chhattisgarh, except for the peripheral issue of cows that has been raised by the Congress and not the BJP. The Congress has accused the BJP of gau hatya because of deaths in gaushalas. And yes, Chief Minister Raman Singh, in April 2017, did make a dramatic statement that anyone found killing cows would be “hanged” though no such law has been brought. 

Actually, there’s a tragedy unfolding in this state that has one of the highest cattle populations in the country but with the lowest yields of milk. As cows can no longer be sold to slaughterhouses, they are abandoned and end up wandering the roads, fields and forests. On the swank 17-km drive between Raipur and New Raipur (now called Atal Nagar), the most compelling signs of life can be seen in the number of cows on the roads, crossing. 

Still, it's not an issue unless it is dovetailed into the larger agrarian distress that the Congress is highlighting. The Ram Mandir issue too is irrelevant here because as an electoral plank, it needs a large Muslim presence to mobilise against the "other" and that is missing from the demographics of the state. 

Indeed, the communal faultline, if any, in Chattisgarh traditionally exists vis-à-vis Christians (2.5 per cent of the population). The state played a significant cameo in the history of Sangh Parivar.  The late BJP leader, Dileep Singh Judeo (died in 2013), the Raja of Jashpur, one of the princely states of India during the British Raj, oversaw with great gusto the project of “ghar wapsi” in collaboration with the VHP. Briefly, Christian Tribals were “purified” and brought into the Hindu fold. 

Possibly because three-term CM Raman Singh is not a practitioner of hardline Hindutva (while some of his adversaries and rivals such as Judeo from the BJP were), even this has not built into a significant narrative that can be used for electoral mobilisation. Indeed, observers say that Raman Singh operates through bureaucrats and though the Sangh cadre offers help, he is not overly dependent on them.  

So, it's not temples and cows that trouble Raman Singh but human machinations within the BJP. It is speculated that the CM is not happy with the ticket distribution where BJP chief Amit Shah had the final call. There is also an alternative star emerging within the state unit in the form of Rajya Sabha MP Saroj Pandey. She was mayor of Durg for 10 years and won the Lok Sabha seat in 2008. She was, however, the only BJP candidate from Chhattisgarh who lost the LS election in the 2014 Modi wave (of the 11 state seats, 10 are held by the BJP). 

There has always been speculation that Raman Singh was not overly supportive of her candidature. Still, the BJP national leadership compensated and Saroj Pandey was elected to the Upper House  from Chhattisgarh this year. She had also created a little storm in the BJP teacup some months ago when she said that the CMs are decided after the polls. What all of this means is that Raman Singh does not have a free hand as he did during the BJP presidentships of Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari. He needs to make it or he will not be the future of the BJP. 

The local BJP knows there are inner struggles, but says it's worse in the Congress, where there's been a scandal involving a tapped conversation with state party chief Bhupesh Baghel where some references are made to a CD involving PL Punia, the party in charge of the state. Baghel’s influence has, therefore, been curtailed in the ticket distribution in the state where the Congress is certainly in with a chance. 

Within the state Congress, it is the gentlemanly TS Singh Deo, who seems the leader with respect from within the ranks. With its limited resources, the Congress is putting up a coherent fight. The issues both for the BJP and Congress are conventional, but getting the ticket distribution right is paramount.