The Hindu : Jogi puts Congress ahead

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 23, 2003

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Other States - Chattisgarh

Jogi puts Congress ahead

By V. Krishna Ananth

DURG NOV. 22. At a time when political parties find it difficult to overcome the anti-incumbency factor, the Congress led by Ajit Jogi, seems to be all set to return to power in Chhattisgarh. In a little over three years after Mr. Jogi took over, the party has apparently re-established itself in the State. The decision to prefer Mr. Jogi to V.C. Shukla for chief ministership appears to have helped the Congress.

Mr. Jogi has reinvented the party's identity in both the tribal belt and towns. A social alliance of the Dalits and the adivasis, who together constitute a large part of the electorate, makes the Congress a front-runner in this election. True the Congress was not decimated in Chhattisgarh as it was in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. But then, the BJP had made sufficient inroads particularly among the upper castes from where the Congress leaders in the region were drawn from. Similarly, the Congress was also losing out its base among the Dalits.

The Congress' clout in the region was derived through leaders such as V.C. Shukla and Motilal Vora apart from the chieftains in the adjoining tribal districts. This indeed was leading to an erosion of its support base especially after the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) entered the scene in the late Eighties.However, the party is now in a state of decline. While its candidate in Pamgarh is fighting hard to retain the seat, developments in Mandirhasaud, another constituency in the region where the BSP has grown in the past decade, seem to reflect the bad times ahead for the party. The BSP nominee, Balkrishna Aggarwal, withdrew his nomination a few minutes before the deadline. Mayawati was slated to start her campaign in a rally there. The perception is that Mr. Jogi managed to get the BSP nominee withdraw from the contest.

Similarly, the BJP too was making strong inroads in the urban pockets, deriving support from major towns, including Durg and Bhilai. This was evident in the tribal districts too. The party's score in the Lok Sabha elections in 1998 and 1999 pointed to the decline of the Congress in Chhattisgarh. But then, over a dozen BJP MLAs joined the Congress soon after the State came into existence. All of them are contesting as Congress candidates this time.

Jogi's show

Mr. Jogi seems to have retrieved a lot of the ground in three years. Unlike in other States where the Congress' dependence on Sonia Gandhi is complete, in Chhattisgarh, it is Mr. Jogi's show all the way.

A day after Ms. Gandhi addressed an election rally in Bhilai, the most discussed speech in the stretch between the industrial township and Rajnandgaon was Mr. Jogi's.

Despite all the gains it made in the past decade, the absence of a leader representing the aspirations of the people in the region around whom the ranks could be galvanised is beginning to tell on the fortunes of the BJP this time.

Dilip Singh Judev is influential only in certain pockets of Jashpur and that too among the tribals, who look up to him with reverence.

Moreover, the perception that the revenue accruing out of the mineral wealth and the industrial centres in the region were aiding the development in other parts of Madhya Pradesh was strengthened when Chhattisgarh did not "gain" in the development front despite leaders from the region — the Shukla brothers and MotilalVora — wielding influence in the political establishment in Bhopal.

Mr. Jogi was not burdened with this baggage of the past. He was elected Chief Minister shortly after he arrived on the political scene.

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Jogi puts Congress ahead