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Stepping up its preparations for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections due later this year, the BJP Saturday appointed Union minister and senior party leader Narendra Singh Tomar as the convenor of its Election Committee.
As it seeks to fight anti-incumbency in a state where it has been in power for almost two decades, barring a brief break in 2018-2020, the BJP earlier roped in Union ministers Bhupender Yadav and Ashwini Vaishnaw as in-charge and co-in-charge respectively of the polls in MP. A fourth senior leader, P Murlidhar Rao, was put in-charge of the state BJP in November 2020.
A source said the idea behind deploying the heavy guns is to showcase the party’s star line-up, from across regions and castes, including Jyotiraditya Scindia. This, the source said, will help overcome the voter fatigue around Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who is now into his fourth term in power. “It should help the party mitigate anti-incumbency as well as boredom,” the source said.
A former MP BJP chief known for his organisational skills, Tomar belongs to Morena, is the MP from Morena Lok Sabha seat, and is the most prominent face of the party in the Gwalior-Chambal region. While the area was once a stronghold of the BJP, it has recently been facing cracks in the bastion.
Crucially, Tomar is said to have played a key role in bringing over Scindia, who belongs to the same region, from the Congress to the BJP in 2020. Of the 20-plus MLAs who moved with him, 15 belonged to Gwalior-Chambal. This had caused the Kamal Nath-led Congress government to collapse, and the BJP to return to power.
While the Congress had emerged as the single largest party after the 2018 Assembly elections, it had led the BJP by just five seats – getting 114 to the BJP’s 109. In terms of vote share, the BJP was slightly ahead, with 0.1% more votes.
The BJP falling back on Tomar is also crucial as last year, the BJP lost several of its strongholds in the local body elections in the state, including the Gwalior municipal corporation, to the Congress. It was the first time in 57 years that the BJP didn’t win the Gwalior mayor’s seat.
There were apprehensions in some quarters that Tomar’s appointment might be seen as a challenge to Chouhan, with talk around for some time that the party may not project the latter as the CM face. Others felt that boosting a Rajput leader could impact the BJP’s caste balance, with Chouhan starting out with the advantage of being an OBC leader in a state where they number more than 50% of the population.
However, here is where the BJP hopes to score with its “collective leadership” formula, of strong leaders at different posts of the organisation in the state. Sources also maintained that Chouhan would be “the face of the party” in the elections.
Party sources in Bhopal said that contrary to fatigue fears, Chouhan, who is known for his welfare schemes that earned him the moniker “Mamaji”, remains popular in the state. Sources said that internal surveys suggest 57% popularity for him among party ranks in some districts.
