Opinion: 'Bantadhar' won’t work: Mama and double-engine BJP need catchy new epithet for opponents in MP

By Milind Ghatwai: Having ruled the state for nearly two decades (except for a brief period of 15 months) and the Centre for more than nine years on the trot, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is running short of enemies to target in Madhya Pradesh as it gets into campaign mode, which usually entails going after its adversaries at full throttle.

In the BJP’s scheme of things, political campaigning acquires a sharper edge when it has opponents to target. The adversarial tone, it believes, finds more traction among voters and enlivens the discourse. Occasionally, the party creates adversaries if there are none in sight or delves into history to breathe life into characters long forgotten.

In the run-up to launching a full-fledged campaign in MP, it’s not surprising that the ruling party has again fallen back on “Mr Bantadhar” (loosely translated as ruiner or destroyer), a pejorative used for former chief minister Digvijaya Singh. The BJP highlights his uninterrupted rule from 1993 to 2003 as one marked by a lack of electricity, water, and roads. In an attempt to take the voters back by two decades to the Congress regime under Singh, the state BJP has started sharing videos on its official Twitter handle. One claims that shops and businesses used to wind up early in the evening because of power shortages. Another asserts that dacoits and mafias had a free run.

Even Home Minister Amit Shah, who addressed party workers in Indore recently, invoked “Mr Bantadhar” and “Mr Corruption Nath”, the latter in reference to veteran leader Kamal Nath who was chief minister between December 2018 and March 2020. The former BJP president focused more on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and central schemes. He spoke about the revocation of Article 370, cross-border infiltration during Congress regimes, and the surgical strikes by the Narendra Modi government — themes he has repeated many times in the state. He did not forget to call former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh “Mauni Baba”.

Former chief minister Uma Bharti had a big role in popularising the term. The pejorative had been used in the 2008, 2013 and 2018 Assembly elections in differing degrees and also in the 2019 general elections when Singh contested against controversial BJP leader Pragya Singh Thakur from the Bhopal parliamentary constituency.

After losing the 2003 elections, Singh announced that he would not hold any office for 10 years or contest any elections. He stuck to his word but that did not stop the BJP from targeting him in the 2008 elections, even though he was not contesting. The Congress then tried to make a feeble attempt to counter the rival’s campaign by calling Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan “Mr Satyanashi”. But it didn’t click.

The BJP wanted to go to town with the pejorative again in the 2013 Assembly elections but the Congress party’s decision to make Jyotiraditya Scindia the head of its campaign committee chief — and, thereby, the face of its campaign in the state — forced the BJP to make a course correction. The BJP’s plan to frame the fight as “Mr Bantadhar” versus “Mr Karnadhar” (Chouhan as captain) came unstuck.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, one BJP leader even referred to Singh as “Maulana Bantadhar” without taking his name. He did not have to name him. The name had a certain recall value but it’s anybody’s guess if it will ring a bell with the younger voters. When the Congress announced Singh’s candidature from Bhopal, Chouhan was quick to welcome him saying “Mr Bantadhar Returns”.

In the 2018 Assembly elections, the BJP’s campaign theme was “Maaf karo maharaj, hamara neta Shivraj” in a bid to contrast the backgrounds of Scindia, the erstwhile royal who was with the Congress then, and Chouhan, who often boasts of his modest background.

The National Democratic Alliance’s spectacular victory in 2014 robbed the BJP in MP of one of its main poll planks. When the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance government was in power, the BJP had much to talk about: it used to play the victim card by accusing the Centre of discriminating against the BJP-ruled state. Chouhan, who became chief minister for the first time in November 2005, sat on dharnas in the state capital on many occasions to flag issues like coal shortage, or demanding relief packages for farmers.

When the UPA was in power, the BJP under Chouhan contested Assembly elections in 2008 and 2013 in MP, highlighting the step-motherly treatment from the Centre and accusing it of violating the spirit of federalism in the Constitution. It was easier to charge the Centre with not clearing controversial legislation.

Chouhan once rode a bicycle from the chief minister’s house to the secretariat with his ministerial colleagues to protest against fuel hikes. That was the last time people saw him on a bicycle.

When Shah, who has virtually taken command of campaigning in MP, spoke to party workers in Indore recently, there was not much in his speech that they had not heard before. The allegation that corruption was rampant in the Kamal Nath regime and “transfers and postings” had become a money-making business, had been used threadbare in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and the by-elections to 28 constituencies held in 2020. The BJP won 19 of those seats but the “transfer industry” charge has already been used twice.

While currently keeping focus on the two-decade-old rule of Singh and the short-lived Kamal Nath government, the BJP has also started highlighting rape cases and law-order issues in Congress-ruled Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh that will also go to polls simultaneously. It asks questions of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi.

The BJP, however, is banking on Ladli Behna Yojana under which married women get Rs 1,000 every month. Huge hoardings reminding beneficiaries of approaching the tenth of every month, when the money is deposited in their bank accounts, are regularly put up across the stage. The hoardings prominently promise that the amount will be gradually increased to Rs 3,000.

In his speeches, Chouhan warns people that the Congress would discontinue the scheme if voted to power. It doesn’t matter that Congress has promised to give Rs 1,500 a month.

While elections are still some months away, the ruling party will have to come up with something novel to catch voters’ attention. The “double-engine sarkar” argument has been around for quite some time. Chouhan’s image as Mama, the benefactor, is unlikely to bring anything new to the table. In a tacit admission, the BJP has tried to shift focus away from Chouhan. When Shah spoke in Indore, he sought votes for the Assembly elections in the state and the 2024 general elections.

(Milind Ghatwai is a freelance journalist with over three decades of experience.)