Rahul Gandhi and the pro-Congress
ideologues were on cloud nine after the victory in Karnataka elections. They
began daydreaming that now there is no stopping for them in the 2024 elections.
Seeing their confidence which had reached the next level, Uddhav Thackeray, who
is their ideological partner, and his spoilt ‘clone’ Sanjay Raut began to
believe that their victory was also decided. They almost finished the task of
preparing a list of people whom they would imprison after coming to power in
the coming years. This Thackeray-Raut duo, like ‘begani shaadi main Abdullah
deewana’ began performing ‘Kuchipudi’ (pun intended) outside Matoshree. And the
voters brought them to reality. They had almost gotten into a competition of
criticizing Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the most atrocious language. Since
the power to run the nation ran in his family for years, feudalism had got
ingrained which was evident in Rahul Gandhi’s speech. But today, the voters
gave him a reality check.
After this thumping majority in
Madhya Pradesh and winning the states of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, the
Bharatiya Janata Party almost blew the trumpet of a big victory in the
forthcoming 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The voters have reposed their faith in Narendra
Modi’s manifestos that only talks about developmental activities. The results
have also reiterated that Narendra Modi is a symbol of credibility in politics.
People will recollect how a few sections of the media had highlighted the
differences and confusion over seat sharing and allocation of candidates and
how the BJP will be hit hard in the two states namely Madhya Pradesh and
Rajasthan for not announcing its chief ministerial candidate. They even tried
to spread a narrative that these factors will affect the BJP adversely. In
fact, some astrologers also predicted similar fortunes in their programmes
telecast on various TV channels. But people in Madhya Pradesh defied all odds
and expressed their faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shivraj Singh
Chauhan’s welfare schemes for the poor.
Now let us take a quick look at
the statistics. In 2018 Assembly elections in the four states, namely Madhya
Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Telangana, of the total 638 seats, the
Congress had won 299 and the BJP had got 198 seats. And today, BJP won 337 (an
increase of 139) seats while the Congress won 234 (a decrease of 65) seats out
of the total 638 seats. The BJP had scored zero while the Congress’s score was
3 during the 2018 Assembly elections, but in 2023, BJP’s score is 3 (the 3
states where Congress had won) and Congress’s score is 1. Despite winning
Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh in 2018 Assembly elections, the
Congress had barely managed to secure 50 seats in the Lok Sabha in 2019. The
results also show an increase in the percentage of votes polled in favour of
the BJP – an increase of 7.81 per cent in Madhya Pradesh, 13.03 per cent in
Chhattisgarh, 3.85 per cent in Rajasthan and 6.89 per cent in Telangana whereas
except in Telangana, there has been a decline in the votes polled in favour of
the Congress.
Now let us consider Madhya
Pradesh. Excluding the 16 months tenure, i.e., from December 2018 to March
2020, leadership of Shivraj Singh, who had been the chief minister of Madhya
Pradesh since 2005, was put to test during this election. From 2005 to 2018,
Shivraj Singh had contributed in changing the face of Madhya Pradesh for the
good by undertaking various welfare schemes. The state that was once projected
for being a ‘bimaru rajya’ later earned the reputation of being the state with
highest agricultural development rate. It was owing to Shivraj Singh’s
strategic policies that Madhya Pradesh became the largest wheat producing state
overtaking Punjab and Haryana.
Even during the last
three-and-a-half years, the Shivraj government took many decisions for the
welfare of the farmers. Madhya Pradesh settled a total 49 lakh claims in the
crop insurance scheme and ensured that crop insurance compensation to the tune
of Rs 7,618 crore got deposited in the bank accounts of the farmers during the
financial years 2020-21 and 2021-22. Unfortunately, when the Congress led by
Kamal Nath came to power in December 2018 to March 2020, the state government’s
share of crop insurance scheme was not paid. It was Shivraj Singh’s government
only that had provided interest-free loans to farmers. By the end of 2022, the
Shivraj government had paid Rs 29,000 crore to the banks as interest on
farmers’ loans.
Also, Shivraj Singh government’s
‘Ladli Behna Yojana’ and ‘Ladli Laxmi Yojana’ were stopped by the Kamal Nath
government which were again started by the Shivraj Singh’s government. The
government also offered a huge subsidy of Rs 30,000 crore to ensure that
farmers receive electricity at a cheaper rate. This benefitted the farmers as
it increased the production of agricultural goods. Under the Pradhan Mantri
Kisan Samman Nidhi scheme, farmers receive Rs 10,000 (Rs 6,000 from the central
government and Rs 4,000 from the Shivraj government). This also contributed to
the thumping victory of the BJP even from the rural areas.
With regard to Rajasthan, a
narrative was being set that owing to the differences within the BJP over the
leadership issue, the party will suffer whereas the Congress will benefit. But
people proved all theories wrong, and they showed their undeterred trust over
Narendra Modi and got the BJP back to power, putting all doubts to rest.
Also in Chhattisgarh, it was
almost decided that Congress will win. But Chhattisgarh people were fed up with
corrupt governance of the Baghel government. It was amidst elections that chief
minister Bhupesh Baghel’s Mahadev App scam came to light. Defying all
predictions, BJP regained power in Chhattisgarh. Although the performance in
Telangana was not as per expectations, the percentage of votes definitely
increased and so did the seats. This proves that Congress’s prince, who
believes in spreading love, used the most inappropriate word ‘panauti’, thus
exhibiting his cultural upbringing. An inference from the poll results –
‘Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh toh keval zhanki hain, Lok Sabha abhi
baaki hai’ (this is just a trailer, Lok Sabha is still to come).
(Article
Pre-Published in Times of India -04 December. 2023)
Keshav Upadhye, Chief Spokesperson
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