BJP govt in MP prepares series of sops as Congress turns the heat on

When it comes to deciding who prepared harder for Rahul Gandhi’s Mandsaur visit on June 6, it’s going to be a toss-up between the Congress and the BJP. Long before Rahul Gandhi landed at Mandsaur, the government was doing everything it could to ensure the numbers for the Congress rally was pegged down to the minimum. Subtle messages were being sent to the government officials to ensure people do not attend the rally.

Roads to Mandsaur were combed round the clock. Meenakshi Natarajan, former Congress MP from Mandsaur, said the party had prepared well to get more than three lakh people for the rally.

Former Chief Minister Digvijay Singh camped in the town for two days. The party also expected Hardik Patel to chip in with his influence on the strong Patidar community presence in the region. Barring one, relatives of all victims of last year’s police firing offered to join Rahul Gandhi and colleagues in a condolence meeting on the death anniversary.

Six farmers - Kanhaiya Lal Patidar, Satyanarayan Dhangar, Abhishek Patidar, Bablu, Ghanshyam Dhakad and Chintaman Patidar - were killed in police firing. After being embarrassed by intelligence failure and controversy over who fired on the agitators, the government has tried to salvage the situation by announcing an unprecedented ex-gratia amount ₹1 crore and a government job for a close relative of each victim. The survivors gracefully acknowledge the government’s gesture. But does that guarantee support to the Shivraj Chouhan dispensation? The government’s and the BJP’s desperation can be measured by the largesse being announced for the farmers in the state.

On Tuesday the government announced big relief in electricity bills to consumers below poverty line. The bill amount would be capped at ₹200. The scheme would cover almost half of the state’s power consumers. Chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has announced a yatra blitz through next week. The sops to be announced include Krishi Samriddhi scheme by which ₹265 will be deposited into the accounts of farmers producing wheat, mustard, gram and lentil. The announcement is scheduled for June 10. On June 11 Chouhan would distribute laptops to 26,000 students. On June 13 he would release ₹4000 crore under Jana Kalyan Yojana for the labourers of unorganised sector. All this done, he plans to embark upon a two-month Jan Aashirwad Yatra of the state. It is not just the guilt of having let down the farmers that is driving the government to such generosity. Both Malwa and Nimar regions have for long been the stronghold of the BJP. The region is fertile and prosperous. The mood is palpably anti-government and anti-BJP. Populism is not always a trump card against incumbency fatigue.

The party had faced a similar situation when its loan-waiver scheme had boomeranged in early 1990s. BJP’s first government on its own strength was formed in 1990 under Sunderlal Patwa. Much against the advice of the then party president Atal Behari Vajpayee, BJP had promised loan waivers for farmers before coming to power. Once in power it realised that the loan waiver had only benefited the defaulters.

So, when mid-term elections were called after the Babri Mosque demolition, BJP was swept away from the rural areas of MP in 1993 elections bringing the Congress back under Digvijay Singh. The group of farmers’ unions had announced that it would not seek support of political parties. But the agitation planned for June 8 might have the likes of Yashwant Sinha, Shatrughan Sinha and Praveen Togadia in the line-up against the government. So, the threat to the BJP is not merely from the opposition but also opposition from within the party.