Revealed: How BJP plans to retain Madhya Pradesh, remove anti-incumbency of Shivraj

New Delhi: With less than one year to go for Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party hopes to retain its Madhya Pradesh bastion in Assembly polls scheduled for later this year. And the saffron unit has decided to replicate its trusted "Gujarat Model" to ensure victory in the neighbouring state.

Party sources stated that over one-third sitting MLAs are likely to be dropped by the BJP in Madhya Pradesh to ensure ending anti-incumbency against the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.

The BJP has successfully used this anti-incumbency reduction political tactic in Gujarat repeatedly and successfully. Now it has decided to implement this strategy in Madhya Pradesh as well and a survey to find out the weak MLAs has already been commissioned by the saffron front, sources said.

While Gujarat has seen changes at the chief ministerial level as well, in Madhya Pradesh the BJP has decided to persist with Chouhan as its chief ministerial face in the state.

The BJP also hopes that Chouhan's image of "mama" and introducing several welfare measures for women may get the party back in the reckoning, sources said.

This has, however, caused massive anti-incumbency against the current government which has been in power for almost two decades, barring a brief period of about 15 months when Kamal Nath-led Congress government was in power.

 In 2018, the BJP was only able to secure 109 out of 230 seats in the MP Assembly, paving the way for the formation of Kamal Nath-led government after Congress was able to win 114 seats. Though the BJP was later able to engineer a split in the Congress with the help of Jyotiraditya Scindia and come back to power in the central Indian state.

With 29 Lok Sabha seats, Madhya Pradesh is a crucial state for both the BJP and Congress. The BJP had secured 27 seats in the 2014 general election while it had bettered its performance and secured 28 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and the saffron front hopes to maintain its lead over Congress in the state as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to seek his third consecutive term in 2024 general elections.

Sources stated that BJP strategists have discussed the issue and the top leadership is seemingly inclined towards a major overhaul in the ticket distribution process. Polls for the 230 members Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly are scheduled to take place later this year.

Another reason for the denial of tickets to these legislators is that the BJP wants to appeal to the youth of the state and wants to be seen as the party which gives opportunity to the youth. “A right balance of experience and youth will be maintained and the party hopes to reach out to the youth in the forthcoming polls,” sources added.

However, for the BJP the task won’t be so easy as the Congress has regained confidence in its ability after the Karnataka win. The grand old party has also given total control of the state unit and decisions on the selection of candidates to former chief minister Kamal Nath.

The confidence of the Congress of wresting Madhya Pradesh from the BJP in the Assembly polls is also evident from the fact that it is soon expected to finalize its list of candidates, much ahead of the polling date announcement.

With Kamal Nath in charge, the grand old party has decided to give complete backing to its candidates and an early finalization of the list is being done so that these Congress nominees have ample time to prepare for taking on their opponents. In fact, with Jyotiraditya Scindia out of the ranks and Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh establishing a flourishing working relationship, the Congress feels it has a great shot at returning to power in the crucial state.