State Congress ‘resurrects’ Sonia

The 2013 assembly elections in this idyllic state are as much about marginalisation of former chief minister Ajit Jogi as about anything else. Unlike the last two elections, when Jogi hogged Congress posters, banners and hoardings and stared down at people from larger-than-life cutouts, he is missing from the party’s campaign this time around.

There is not even a mention of Jogi on propaganda unleashed by union minister and state Congress president Charan Das Mahant in Chhattisgarhi dialect against the Raman Singh-led BJP regime. The posters either have Mahant and Bhupesh Bhagel making lofty promises to the poor, or Sonia and Rahul Gandhi warning voters against ‘conspiracy’ and ‘vested interests’ of the BJP.

For Sonia Gandhi, it’s a kind of resurrection vis-à-vis 2004, when Jogi completely overshadowed her.

Though the former national spokesperson of the Congress has been made head of state election committee and his wife Renu and son Amit have been fielded from Marwahi and Kota assembly seats, respectively, political experts attribute these sops to restoration of ‘balance’ in the state unit by the Congress high command. The wheelchair-bound leader had earlier threatened to walk out of the party and instigate his core constituency of ‘Satnami’ tribe.

Unfortunately for the Congress, its state unit continues to be faction-ridden. The groups led by Jogi, Mahant and Bhagel are believed to be working at cross-purposes. So much so that candidates owing allegiance to the last two do not even want Jogi to campaign for them. Their argument is that Jogi’s unpopularity would rub off on them. The former civil servant, they claim, is remembered for his highhanded and autocratic behaviour during his tenure as chief minister.

From being the topmost leader in 2004 to being part of a galaxy of leaders in 2013 is quite a comedown, is it not Mr Jogi?

When BSP becomes an issue

It is amazing how an abbreviation gets different shades every time there is an election around. We all know how the BJP expanded BSP into ‘bijli, sadak, paani’ (power, roads, water – the elementary poll issues for the public) in Madhya Pradesh to turn people against the Digvijay Singh government in 2004.
In the north of Raipur, chief minister Raman Singh’s detractors are invoking it for altogether different reasons. Since the abbreviation of BSP stands for Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP) in this part of Chhattisgarh, the issue here is that wastewater from the public sector plant destroys crops in villages, and that the depletion of mining resources around Dallirajhara is driving people out of the region.

There is also the issue of ownership rights for residents of Dallirajhara, a town located on land belonging to the BSP (the steel plant, that is) and Indian Railways.

The town, once bustling with over 1 lakh people, has seen its population shrink to less than 30,000 in recent years. Though it is still bigger than Balod, the district headquarters, it hardly figures on the state map. Despite having been surrounded by green hills and water bodies, nobody wants to settle down here. The candidates contesting the elections from Dondilohara (comprises Dallirajhara) and neighbouring assembly seats, want the BSP to compensate farmers whose crops get destroyed by the plant’s wastewater and grant ownership rights to people living on its land in Dallirajhara.

Last year around the same time there was a major agitation in the town for ownership right. The agitation was backed by the municipal corporation headed by Congress councillor Mukti Niyogi, daughter of late labour leader Shankar Guha Niyogi. It is learnt that the state government has conducted a survey of the houses constructed in the town but the last word is yet to be heard from Raipur. 

Paid news a routine fact in hinterland

The paid news syndrome has riled many a journalist and election commission honchos in Delhi. And rightly so.

But travel to any remote part of the country and you will find that the phenomenon is rampant and no one bats an eyelid on this. The journalists of many vernacular dailies, particularly in mofussil towns, double as ‘space sellers’ and clearly face a conflict of interest day in and day out.

A newspaper headquartered in Rajasthan has even contracted some of its editions to local journalists. Besides writing news reports, the journos collect advertisements for the edition and supervise its distribution in the jurisdiction franchised to them.

The newspaper, which never publishes Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh’s photograph, prints the copies and gets to retain over 80 percent of the advertisement revenue in the bargain. The journalists get part of the profit but end up chasing local politicians and businessmen for commercials.     

EC, the third front

The ‘outdoor’ space in Chhattisgarh has three major claimants vying for voters’ attention. While the BJP and the Congress are wooing the electorate with new promises, the election commission (EC) has also launched a parallel campaign to ward off the boycott threat from Maoists.

The commission has resorted to pasting bills, banners, billboards and writing slogans on public buildings to exhort voters to use their franchise. The basic thrust of its argument is that ‘matdaan’ (voting) adds strength to our democracy and increase in poll percentage would directly translate into an increase in people’s participation in the democratic process, and voting would mean expression of love for the country.   

Besides the poster war, EC has also fanned out ‘nukkad natak’ (street threatre) teams in different parts of the state to awaken people. If one were to go by the EC’s slogans, the commission has set a target of 100 percent polling in Chhattisgarh.     

To the election commission’s advantage, different organs of Chhattisgarh government are also contributing to the awareness campaign. Departments like forest, health and several municipal corporations have raised banners and written slogans in different cities, exhorting people to come out in numbers on D-day.

(A senior Delhi-based journalist, Narendra Kaushik is covering the Chhattisgarh assembly elections for Governance Now as part of a London School of Economics project on grassroots democracy).