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Journalism of Courage
Few gave the BJP a chance in Chhattisgarh where the Congress’s incumbent Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel was predicted to return to power for a second term. Now that the party has pulled off a victory in a huge turnaround from 2018, when it had slumped to 15 seats, it will get down to picking the CM face. The choice won’t be easy for the party, which brought Raman Singh back to the state only towards the end after it could not find a face to match his name recall.
Many in the state BJP say that Singh, the state’s longest-serving CM, enjoys the confidence of both Narendra Modi and Amit Shah and may get another shot at the top job.
The 71-year-old began his political career in college and won his first election as a councillor in 1983. Having served two terms in the Assembly, he contested the Lok Sabha elections in 1999 and was elected to Parliament. He then served as a Union Minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.
In 2003, the BJP brought him back to lead it in the state’s first Assembly elections. During his 15-year run as CM, the BJP, among other things, strengthened the rice procurement initiative and put the Public Distribution System (PDS) in place. As a result, Singh came to be popularly referred to as “Chawal wale Baba”. He was moved out of the state after the party slumped to 15 seats in 2018 and was subsequently appointed the party’s national vice president.
With the party needing a leader with a high profile in the state, Singh, a six-time MLA, was fielded again from Rajnandgaon, with Amit Shah joining him for a rally on the day he filed his nomination. He is even said to have played a role in ticket distribution. Asked if he wanted to be the CM again, Singh told The Indian Express, “If the party gives me a chance inkar nahin hai (I won’t refuse). But from my side, agreh (bhi) nahin hai(I am not actively seeking it either).”
The 54-year-old state BJP president and Bilaspur MP is one of the BJP’s tallest Other Backward Class (OBC) leaders. Sao is from the Sahu samaj that is the biggest OBC community in Chhattisgarh and has influence in at least 51 non-reserved constituencies. Last year, he was tasked with heading the state unit last year in a move to counterbalance CM Baghel, replacing tribal leader Vishnudeo Sai.
Sao took on the Congress aggressively, organising a huge rally in Bemetara in April to condemn the death of a person from the Sahu community in communal violence and called for a statewide bandh a day after the violence. He also regularly targeted the Bhupesh Baghel government over corruption — from the Mahadev and coal levy commission cases and rice millers case — and blamed the ruling party for the “conspiring and targeted killing” of four BJP leaders killed by Maoists this year.
Sao led the Congress’s Thaneshvar Sahu, the State Backward Classes Commission chief, in Lormi in Mungeli district by 38,483 votes at the end of 15 rounds of counting. Sao is the son of senior RSS leader Abhayram Sao and was involved with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). He started his BJP career with the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in 1996 and practised as a lawyer at the Chhattisgarh High Court in Bilaspur and later worked in the advocate general’s office.
The Union Minister of State for Tribal Affairs is the ideal choice if the party wishes to appoint the state’s first woman tribal CM.
The 59-year-old was a member of the social welfare board in Chhattisgarh before becoming a two-time MLA from Premnagar in Surguja division. She lost in 2013 but won the Lok Sabha election from Surguja by 1.57 lakh votes in 2019. That victory came a year after the Congress swept all 14 Assembly seats in the division. Fielded from Bharatpur-Sonhat in Surguja division, she led the Congress’s Gulab Kamor by 5,433 votes after 13 rounds of counting.
Among the BJP’s notable tribal faces in the state, Kashyap has been aggressive on the issue of tribal conversion in Bastar. The 48-year-old from Bastar’s Narayanpur district is the son of the late Baliram Kashyap, who was a four-time MLA and four-time Lok Sabha MP from Bastar.
A two-time minister, Kashyap was MLA from 2003 till 2018, when he lost from Narayanpur by just 2,647 votes. In 2009, he escaped a Maoist attack after leaving a temple in Bhanpuri, Bastar but his brother Tansen, a panchayat president, was shot dead minutes later. Another brother, Dinesh, who later became MP suffered injuries.
Now, seen as the BJP’s Hindu face in Bastar, Kashyap has been vocal in raising the issue of the alleged conversion of tribals to Christianity in Naryanpur, where a Church was vandalised earlier this year and Christian tribals were boycotted. Kashyap led sitting MLA Chandan Kashyap of the Congress by 17,755 votes at the end of 18 rounds of counting.
Sai is said to be among the most senior tribal leaders in Chhattisgarh. A former Union Minister and four-time Lok Sabha MP, 59-year-old Sai was also a two-time MLA in undivided Madhya Pradesh. At an election rally, Amit Shah had said that he would make Sai a “big man” if he is voted to power.
A four-time minister, he was among those in contention for the top job in 2003 before Raman Singh became the CM.
One of Agrawal’s major strengths is said to be his closeness to the trader community in Raipur city. Though his party was trounced in 2018, the 64-year-old leader became MLA for the seventh time, winning his seat by more than 17,000 votes. He was not chosen as the Leader of the Opposition but led every argument that the party made against the Congress in the House. He was among the few BJP leaders who were on the ground when the BJP organised a morcha to the Vidhan Sabha in March in protest against the poor implementation of the PM Awas Yojana.
Agrawal began his political career at the age of 18 with the ABVP and in 1990, at the age of 31, he became the youngest MLA and was awarded the best MLA award in undivided Madhya Pradesh in 1997. At the end of the 14th round of counting, Agrawal led the Congress’s Mahant Ramsundar Das, a former MLA and Dudhadhari temple’s mahant, by 49,864 votes.
A former IAS officer who left his job as a Collector to join the BJP, Choudhary is considered to be the dark horse in the race for the CM’s seat.
During the campaign, Amit Shah said at a rally that he intended to make Choudhary a “bada aadmi (big guy)”. In 2018, Choudhary contested from Kharsia, a seat never lost by the Congress and lost to minister Umesh Patel. This time, he was fielded from Raigarh, where he led the Congress’s Prakash Shakrajeet Naik by 54,244 votes at the end of 16 rounds of counting.
A primary school teacher who left his job to join politics, the 61-year-old former Rajya Sabha MP is among the most senior tribal leaders of the BJP in the state. He won the Ramanujganj seat in Balrampur-Ramanujganj district by 29,663 votes. A former state Home Minister, Netam has been elected to the Assembly five times since 1990. He lost the elections in 2013. For three years, he was also BJP chief in the Surguja tribal region.
