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The euphoria of wrapping up the elections with conclusive victories in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Chhattisgarh over, arduous challenges stare the Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP) within the face. The largest of them is who will lead the legislature events and the governments in Bhopal, Jaipur, and Raipur.
The BJP went into the elections with out declaring its chief minister candidates for tactical causes. Of the three states, it had a authorities solely in MP underneath Shivraj Singh Chouhan, making him the one incumbent chief minister. Chouhan has dominated uninterruptedly since November 2005 however for a short break from 2018 to 2020 when he was dislodged within the meeting election by the Congress. He returned because the chief minister after the Congress legislature celebration break up with the required quantity to offer the BJP a majority.
The BJP dispensations in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh have been additionally voted out in 2018 underneath Vasundhara Raje and Raman Singh. BJP sources stated whereas Raje and Singh might be phased out with out collateral harm, Chouhan was a distinct kettle of fish.
Chouhan may not have been named the chief minister face however he led the BJP’s marketing campaign, entrance and centre indefatigably. The central leaders may need ignored him on the joint conferences to reiterate the message {that a} comeback, in case the celebration received, couldn’t be taken as a right.
Nevertheless, circumstances modified right this moment. A lead/win of 166 out of 230 meeting seats is the second-best efficiency turned in by the BJP because it received 173 seats in 2003. Considerably, it posted its highest vote share in these elections. It was 42.5 per cent in 2003 and 20 years later, the determine went as much as 48.8 per cent, a hike of 6.3 per cent. This after MP was dominated repeatedly by the identical celebration and chief minister for 18 years.
The rise of seven.9 per cent because the final election in 2018—when the BJP was down to simply 109 seats—was attributed by observers to girls voters who have been the focused beneficiaries of Chouhan’s flagship scheme, Ladli Behana (LB).
Introduced on the event of Narmada Jayanti and formally launched on March 5, 2023, the LB transfers a month-to-month stipend of Rs 1,250 to girls whose annual household earnings is beneath Rs 2.50 lakh and who’re throughout the 21-60 age bracket. On Raksha Bandhan this 12 months, Chouhan proclaimed that the month-to-month sum can be enhanced to Rs 3,000 with periodic raises of Rs 250.
Whereas a few of Chouhan’s inclusive schemes attracted adversarial notices for non-delivery due to administrative apathy and alleged corruption, he personally oversaw LB with a zeal that mirrored his willpower to nurture girls throughout the board as a vote financial institution. It evidently paid off a lot the way in which that the ban of prohibition introduced within the block votes of ladies within the 2015 Bihar polls for Nitish Kumar. A day earlier than voting, Chouhan was quoted saying, “In a detailed struggle Ladli Behna has eliminated the thorns in our path.”
The backward castes too appear to have rallied across the BJP in bigger numbers this time than up to now. Chouhan is from the backward caste Kirar.
Perceived as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “competitor” earlier than 2013, he made it some extent to thank Modi and the “double engine sarkar” for the victory. If he’s moved to the Centre, he must get a heavyweight portfolio meaning little in a dispensation through which most ministers are faceless. Chouhan’s destiny shall be decided by the BJP central command’s evaluation of what the transfer may suggest earlier than the Lok Sabha elections.
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