Good or bad, like them or not, the four CMs are tall leaders in their own right. Some of them have become larger than their parties and votes are being sought in their names. This is not to say that they are not facing anti-incumbency or serious allegations of corruption. Before Assam went to the polls on Thursday, the Congress launched a blistering attack on Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma and his wife, accusing him of being the “most corrupt and communal CM” in the country.
Pinarayi Vijayan
Some pre-poll surveys have suggested that all the CMs except Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan could make it back to power. Having said that, even for Pinarayi Vijayan to go for a third straight term in Kerala is unusual. The state has been known for changing governments after one term, and he defeated the Congress in 2021. But more significantly, the tough — and mostly unsmiling — Pinarayi, who started as a party apparatchik, became a pragmatic CM ready to be flexible in his dealings with the market forces, the RSS, and the BJP-ruled Centre when necessary to govern his state and deliver.
Though sometimes criticised for choosing power over ideology, Pinarayi faces an ascendant Congress and an assertive BJP, and it is an open secret that the BJP prefers him over a Congress government. It is also true that his party is fighting the election as a referendum on his name. The stakes are high for the 81-year-old and a loss will further weaken Left parties in the country.
Voters queue up outside a polling station in Guwahati, Thursday. (ANI)
M K Stalin
It was not easy for Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin to follow in the footsteps of his father and five-time CM M Karunanidhi when he took charge in 2021. For all the corruption accusations against the DMK, Stalin’s personal standing has grown. Even his opponents talk about his “graciousness” and “accommodation” towards his opponents.
But the DMK’s fate may be decided by how good or poor a showing actor Vijay’s TVK has. Though immensely popular among the youth and women, and all those who want “change”, Vijay is expected to cut into the anti-incumbency votes and thereby help the DMK return to power. But if Vijay mops a large percentage of votes — say, way above 15% — and it leads to a hung Assembly, the DMK could be in trouble.
Himanta Biswa Sarma
Regional parties such as the DMK and the TMC are individual-driven entities, shaped by the leader who controls the levers of power, as Stalin and Mamata Banerji do. That does not apply to Assam CM Sarma, who has functioned in the ecosystem of the mainline BJP.
Popularly referred to as “mama (uncle)”, Sarma is one of the few leaders to have successfully transitioned from the Congress to the BJP and exercises influence in the highly diverse Northeast. The BJP has given him autonomy of functioning that is not accorded to CMs in the Hindi heartland states. The only other BJP CMs who are leaders in their own right are Yogi Adityanath in UP and Devendra Fadnavis in Maharashtra.
Sarma converted the BJP’s thinking — about undocumented immigrants, Hindutva, and the National Register of Citizens — into potent slogans and programmes and has moved in step with the top leadership of the party. Even the RSS has been watching him with interest.
For the Congress, Assam was a state for the taking, given a decade of anti-incumbency against the BJP. But thanks essentially to Sarma, it is the BJP that is looking at storming back to power. The BJP is looking at the 103 constituencies (of a total of 126), mostly Hindu-dominated, and appears to have written off the 23 Muslim-dominated seats, labelling the Congress as a party of the minorities and directing fire at the “miyas (a pejorative term for Bengali Muslims)”.
Congress leader Gaurav Gogoi put up a valiant fight, but had to contend with the lack of an organisation needed to convert goodwill into votes. Experience shows that three straight defeats make recovery difficult. So another state may go off the Congress’s radar if it loses Assam.
Mamata Banerjee
While the stakes are high for all the CMs, they are the highest for Mamata Banerjee. While her supporters describe West Bengal as a “Mamata versus EC” election — and 91 lakh names have been deleted from the electoral rolls — there is uncertainty about the impact it will have on the outcome.
When she appeared in the Supreme Court in February to personally argue the case for her state, she knew the impact it could have. It reinforced her image as the feisty fighter who replaced the Congress in the state, defeated the Left Front that had been in power for 34 years, and kept the BJP at bay in five (Assembly and Lok Sabha) elections. If Mamata comes back to power, she will make a strong bid for a national role. Before the elections, her name was being flagged for the leadership of the Opposition INDIA bloc.
The BJP is getting ready to pass the Women’s Reservation (Amendment) Bill at the April 16-18 special session of Parliament. It hopes that the Bill will be the arrow that gets the better of Mamata — she has the support of the “mahila”, the minorities, as well as a huge number of Hindus. If Mamata proves herself in the state once again, will the Opposition consider fielding her in 2029 to counter the BJP’s women-oriented electoral offensive?
The elections have underlined this one thing yet again: chehra (clear leader) carries more weight than ideology or narrative in Indian politics more often than not.
(Neerja Chowdhury, Contributing Editor, The Indian Express, has covered the last 11 Lok Sabha elections. She is the author of How Prime Ministers Decide.)
(From left to right) Pinarayi Vijayan, Mamata Banerjee, M K Stalin and Himanta Biswa Sarma 
Voters queue up outside a polling station in Guwahati, Thursday. (ANI)
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