Shivraj Singh Chouhan: The story of a transformation

The metamorphosis has been a while coming, as Chouhan sensed the new wind blowing under the Modi-Shah regime in the BJP. However, it sped up after he lost the 2018 elections to the Congress, and could return as CM in March 2020 only after the central leadership stepped in to split the Congress.

Susceptible to rivals within and opponents outside, and vulnerable to the high command’s vagaries, since then, Chouhan has chosen the easiest road to cement his position – the hard Hindutva route.

The Damoh school row is an escalation, at a time when Chouhan is fighting off long years of incumbency and the voters’ tiredness with him ahead of the polls, and the Congress led by Kamal Nath is proving that it can play the Hindutva game as well.

Once upon a time

When Chouhan first became CM in 2005, it were the days of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani duo. While Vajpayee had lost power the year before as PM, the requirements of the NDA meant the BJP moderated its Hindutva as per time and place.

Chouhan was one of the most prominent faces of this digestible Hindutva. He talked about it as a philosophy that was essentially “human”, and believed in “including everyone in development”. He was not averse to attending an iftaar or even donning a skull cap.

While Madhya Pradesh had its share of communal tension, the Muslim population was meagre (around 6.5%) and, as per the BJP’s opponents, the party saw little value in polarisation for votes.

Chouhan instead came to be known for his welfare schemes — rice at Rs 1 per kg for the poor, Sambal scheme that provided women labourers Rs 16,000 as maternity assistance, free education for poor girls, electricity at a fixed rate of Rs 200 per month etc — and the “Mamaji” tag followed.

Chouhan’s schemes were attributed for the BJP’s return to power in 2008 and 2013, and its creditable finish in 2018.

The change

The first inkling came with the commanding majority with which Narendra Modi came to power in 2014. Till then, Modi and Chouhan were put on an equal pedestal by many, given that they were both CMs with multiple terms under their belt. However, Modi’s stamp was now all over the BJP – and Chouhan saw a quick departure from the inner circle.

Although he was initially made part of the parliamentary board, the party’s apex decision-making body, when it was reconstituted under Modi-Shah in August 2022, Chouhan was dropped, along with Union minister Nitin Gadkari.

In the years after, other CMs replaced Chouhan in the prime sweepstakes, notably his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath and Assam’s Himanta Biswa Sarma, both leaders who wore aggressive Hindutva proudly on their sleeves.

Then came the 2018 election, when Chouhan failed to win a majority. The gap was tiny – the BJP won 109 seats to the Congress’s 114 and, in fact, scored 0.1% more votes – which, logically, was a very good performance given that Chouhan had spent three terms in power already.

While some key leaders in the BJP thought the party should make efforts to fill the gap by roping in Independents and others, Chouhan took a stand that the BJP should sit in the Opposition. But the central leadership weighed in against him, and it was due to its constant efforts that the Congress finally broke, with Jyotiraditya Scindia walking out and joining the BJP with 22 Congress MLAs.

A party leader says: “Since then, Chouhan has been vulnerable to the demands of the forces that brought the party back to power. This fourth term was seen as a gift to him from the organisation, and the tone of the leaders who played key roles in the government formation reflected that. Then started instructions and directions (to Chouhan) for policy changes and appointments.”

Gone was the Chouhan who used to proudly say “Main jaisa hoon waisa hoon (I am what I am)”. To make things worse, he did not enjoy a warm relationship with party state president V D Sharma.

“The mandate, its nature, decides the character of power,” the BJP leader said. “In the changed mandate, Chouhan does not have space for personal manoeuvring. He has to develop more connect with the cadre. It’s not just the Hindutva angle, he has to oblige the cadre.”

Last month, at a state executive meeting of the Madhya Pradesh BJP, senior party leaders warned that the internal crisis could prove costly in the upcoming elections, and that the state leaders needed to “resolve differences and work together as a single unit”. “The example of Karnataka” was cited, where infighting was the prime cause for the BJP’s loss in May.

A senior party leader told The Indian Express: “In Karnataka, the party and government were not on the same page. In Madhya Pradesh also, there are issues between the organisation leadership and the government leadership. If we want to counter the anti-incumbency, they have to work together, which has not happened yet.”

However, senior BJP MP from Madhya Pradesh Ganesh Singh insisted things are improving. “For the last three days, the district-wise core groups of the BJP have been meeting. Both the CM and the party president (Sharma) are working together to ensure full mobilisation of all our manpower and resources,” Singh told The Indian Express.

But, even if the BJP wins, there are many challengers to Chouhan for the CM post, including Scindia; several of them are considered closer to the central leadership than him.

Chouhan’s supporters say it’s not a coincidence that mischievous messages showing him wearing the skull cap at iftars keep popping up among Sangh circles.

The last leg

In his makeover mode, Chouhan has been taking tips from others. After Adityanath gained admirers in the BJP base for sending in bulldozers as a tactic to fight criminals, Chouhan followed suit. Lately, his government has used bulldozers to demolish houses and properties of alleged stone-pelters during communal violence. If Adityanath earned himself the moniker “Bulldozer Baba”, Chouhan started being called “Bulldozer Mama”.

The CM is also pushing schemes, including central, to ensure they reach the intended beneficiaries. Quite like the Modi government’s “sabka saath, sabka vikas” argument, the CM talks about how these schemes do not distinguish between religions, or communities and castes. There has been a special focus on tribals and Scheduled Castes (the latter are seen as angry with the BJP still over dilution of SC/ST Act clauses before the 2018 elections, which were later reversed).

Earlier this year, the Chouhan government announced that women from all sections of society who don’t fall in the income tax bracket would get Rs 1,000 per month under the “Ladli Bahna” scheme. There is a “Ladli Laxmi” plan for girls from families below the poverty line, while in April, his government announced it would pay the fees of children of families with annual income up to Rs 8 lakh, raising the ceiling from Rs 6 lakh.

To keep the Hindutva base happy, the CM has announced Rs 100 crore to construct a temple of Sant Ravidas, a 15th-century saint-poet, revered by the Dalits. The Chouhan government has also introduced Hindu scriptures in government school curriculum and is pushing the construction of temple corridors in Orchha and Chitrakoot.

The Damoh row

An institution with 1,200 students, catering largely to children of farm hands, beedi makers and labourers, and the only English-medium school in the area, drew the ire of right-wing activists after it put up a billboard with images of some of its students.

It was, ironically, meant to celebrate how well the students of the minority-run school had done in the Class 10 boards, but the activists took offence to photos of Hindu students too wearing head scarves that resembled hijabs.

While the administration initially gave a clean chit to the Ganga Jamuna Higher Secondary School, the right-wing pressure drew in Chouhan and his hardline Home Minister Narottam Mishra’s attention.

In the days since, the CM has drawn on everything, including the reciting of an Iqbal verse by students at the school, to attack it. State BJP president V D Sharma has accused the school of running a “jihadist empire”. The school’s principal, teacher and guard are under arrest, several of its staff members are on the run, and a bulldozer now threatens to pull down the structure for alleged building violations.

Muslim leaders say Chouhan’s transformation tells the story of the BJP’s change.

“Using bulldozers to demolish houses and now even schools, this explains what the BJP is today. They just chant sabka saath, sabka vikas, which means nothing to them. The only way left for them to win elections is marginalising the minority and polarising the majority… Chouhan is also resorting to the same,” says Danish Ali, BSP MP in the Lok Sabha.