BJP chief Amit Shah who hasn’t publicly reacted yet to his party’s loss in the three States of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chattisgarh has called a series of review meetings starting Thursday. with central office bearers, in charges of states and the party’s youth wing. On the anvil for Thursday’s scheduled seven-hour meeting would be the lessons from the defeats in the three states and suggestions on how to keep the BJP karyakarta or worker invested in the party’s electoral project. A senior leader involved with the elections in Madhya Pradesh told The Hindu that while the party fought “valiantly” in the state, the three defeats proved that the party worker needed to kept central.
“Karyakarta ki prasannata ki chinta karni chahiye (we should be mindful of the levels of satisfaction of the party worker). This has three aspects, one is to maintain the human touch with party workers, that is, connections should not be impersonal or suggest arrogance. The second is to see how the cause of ideology is to be served and also to keep the aspirations of the workers in mind,” said the source.
In the scheme of forward thinking for the 2019 polls however, the role of the three former chief ministers of the Hindi heartland states is still being debated with Mr Shah expected to make some changes. Former Chattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh’s future plans may involve contesting Lok Sabha polls from Rajnandgaon apart from leading the opposition in the Chattisgarh Assembly. Currently his son Abhishek Singh holds that seat, the party, may prefer stronger candidates in states where they have recently lost polls.
In the case of Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the gritty see saw battle between the BJP and the Congress and limiting the latter to a tenuous majority in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly has proven that he is a mass leader who carries much support with him despite the defeat. His position as the only chief minister in the BJP’s apex decision making body, the parliamentary board is likely to be protected, and a position in the national unit of the party may also be considered. “The most important thing however is that the Congress government will be on a tenuous majority, among the two BSP MLAs, one is a former member of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM). This government will be unlike the one in Karnataka where at least two solid block of MLAs got together,” said a source.
In Rajasthan, with a respectable number of MLAs, Vasundhara Raje is expected to play her part in smoothing the way for Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019. According to sources, Ms Raje had been more or less autonomous in the selection of candidates in the polls, and the central leadership expects her to return the favour come Lok Sabha polls.
While senior leaders admit that the loss in the three states is a tough thing to overcome before 2019, hurt feelings will not be allowed to come in the way of preparations for the next round of polls.