New Delhi, 3 Dec: All talk of the BJP considering a change in leadership in Madhya Pradesh faded into the oblivion on a day when Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan made a strong message about his public popularity as the party seemed poised to maintain power with a remarkable two-thirds majority.
The BJP elected to enter the assembly elections without selecting a chief ministerial candidate in any of the states, and its leaders claimed that the results demonstrated widespread support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s program. “The mandate gives the party leadership a free hand in deciding on chief ministers in all three states,” a senior leader said, declining to identify individuals.
While Chouhan has emerged as the favourite to retain his seat in MP despite the existence of some rivals, the leadership battle in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, two states where the BJP has seized power from the Congress, is wide open.
Many potential candidates for the top post in the three Hindi-speaking states did not run in the assembly elections, but this may not be a concern because the party has previously trusted leaders who were not members of state legislatures, such as Yogi Adityanath in 2017. union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, who stood for the Dimani assembly constituency, and Jyotiraditya Scindia have long been seen as potential chief ministers in Madhya Pradesh.
Political observers in Rajasthan feel that the BJP’s comfortable majority indicates that the party’s leadership would look for a new face as its chief ministerial candidate, despite the fact that two-term former chief minister Vasundhara Raje is a natural contender due to her prominence and sizable support base.
Union ministers Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Arjun Ram Meghwal, state party president C P Joshi, Diya Kumari, who was one of the campaign’s more visible faces, and Mahant Balaknath are all mentioned as possible candidates. Meghwal is a Scheduled Caste, and Balaknath is a Yadav, the most populous OBC minority in Hindi-speaking regions, and having a Hindutva face is considered as a benefit for them.
According to BJP insiders, someone like Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla, who has been a three-term MLA and has the party leadership’s confidence, will be a logical contender. With the next Lok Sabha elections just four months away, the party is likely to consider the larger social narrative when selecting chief ministerial candidates in the three states, a viewpoint that may disadvantage someone like Shekhawat in Rajasthan because he is a Rajput, the same caste as Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath and Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami.
This also benefits Chouhan, the BJP’s sole OBC chief minister and a popular one at that.
Former chief minister Raman Singh, state BJP president Arun Kumar Sao, opposition politician Dharamlal Kaushik, and former IAS officer OP Chaudhary are among the candidates in Chhattisgarh, according to political observers. All three leaders, with the exception of Singh, are members of the Other Backward Classes (OBC).
Party officials also pointed out that the results highlight the widespread support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s program throughout the states, and that the outcome should be viewed in that light, even if Telangana remains a distant third after rising from a low base in terms of vote share and seat tally. It should be noted, however, that the BJP leadership has frequently shocked onlookers with its chief ministerial choices in the past.
