Brother and the ballot

To ride out anti-incumbency, Shivraj Singh Chouhan is banking on women-centric welfare schemes and a tough-on-crime image

- PRATUL SHARMA

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is bracing for a big fight. Two, in fact. The assembly polls are due in December, and if the BJP emerges victorious, there would be another contest within the party for the chief minister’s post. Chouhan is trying to become chief minister for a record fifth time.

“This time, our mandate will be the biggest ever,” says Chouhan. He is in his official residence in Bhopal, overlooking the lake Bada Talab. He has returned after a hectic round of events—the rollout of five Jan Ashirwad Yatra chariots from the BJP headquarters in Bhopal, announcing the availability of meals for the poor at the reduced price of ₹5 (instead of ₹10) under the Deendayal Rasoi Yojana, and addressing a rally on women empowerment, a subject close to his heart. “I only see the eye of the bird,” says Chouhan, quoting Arjuna in the Mahabharat, as he talks about the polls.

At 64, Chouhan is the longest-serving BJP chief minister with 16 years under his belt. Since becoming CM in 2005, Chouhan has been out of power only for around a year, when Kamal Nath of the Congress became chief minister after the 2018 polls. Chouhan returned as CM in March 2020, after engineering a split in the Congress, but by then the BJP’s national leadership was looking at promoting a new line of leaders in the state. In August 2022, Chouhan was dropped from the BJP’s parliamentary board, the party’s highest decision-making body that he had been a member of since 2014. It set off intense speculation that the BJP was keen to promote new leaders in the state.

“I am an ordinary party worker,” Chouhan says, when asked about his national ambitions. “It is up to the party to decide on any role.”