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The recovery of cash worth Rs 5.39 crore, allegedly meant for Congress in poll-bound Chhattisgarh, and a statement released by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) accusing Bhupesh Baghel of taking Rs 508 crore from Mahadev app promoters — three days ahead of the first-phase election in his state, the chief minister is in for a tough contest.
On November 7, 20 constituencies of Chhattisgarh will cast their vote — including Baghel’s assembly seat Patan which will witness a uniquely striking poll battle between Chacha (uncle) and Bhatija (nephew). Even though the fight seems to be a bipolar one between Congress and BJP, there is a third stakeholder who may be the deciding factor.
The rural assembly seat, dominated by OBCs, will see three political bigwigs of the state fighting — Bhupesh Baghel of Congress, Vijay Baghel of BJP and Amit Jogi of Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J). Vijay is Bhupesh Baghel’s nephew and was with the Congress until 2000. Vijay Baghel is BJP’s MP from Durg Lok Sabha seat and Patan is one of the seven assembly segments of Durg. Amit Jogi is the son of Chhattisgarh’s first chief minister Ajit Jogi, who was also in Congress and later floated his own party Janta Congress in 2016.
Overall, in Patan, the state is going to see the most interesting and striking poll battle. Bhupesh Baghel has been winning this seat since 1993, barring 2008. He has been a five-term MLA from Patan. In 2008, he lost to his political opponent Vijay Baghel by a margin of around 7,800 votes.
Speaking with News 18, Bhupesh Baghel slammed ED and accused the agency of acting in a ‘selective manner’. “ED is a biased agency. Raman Singh and his wife have been accused of several scams. Their son Abhishek Singh’s name also featured in chit funds and other scams. Why didn’t ED investigate any of them?” he asked.
The chief minister, however, sounded confident about the first phase. “In 2018, we won 17 of these 20 seats. This election we will sweep this phase.”
The OBC factor
Both the Baghels belong to the Kurmi community, which is known to be a dominant OBC caste in the region. However, Patan is dominated by the Sahu community, another strong OBC group. According to the 2011 census, the Sahu community forms over 20 per cent of the electorate in Patan.
Bhupesh Baghel is one of the very few chief ministers in the country who managed to balance religion and caste politics and policies well. On one hand, he has been building temples and statues of lord Ram, Raipur’s showpiece Kaushalya Mata temple, and on the other, he has been a chief minister who announced a record number of cash benefit schemes, including several loan waivers.
In the past few days, Bhupesh Baghel announced three loans and tax waivers that included farm loan, loans of self-help groups and commercial taxes for motor vehicles. In addition, he also waived off electricity cost for 200 units upper limit.Most importantly, his party announced a hike in paddy procurement price from Rs 2,640 per quintal to Rs 3,000 per quintal. The financial assistance and loan waivers are primarily directed towards the OBC, SC and ST communities.
Ram Rajya?
Villages in Patan have multiple statues of Lord Ram, several Gautahans (modern cowsheds) and Dhan Mandis (paddy procurement zones for the government). About his ways to balance religion and caste, Bhupesh Baghel said he has built over a dozen statues of Lord Ram across the state. “This is my faith and we do not do politics over religion.”
However, his political opponent Amit Jogi does not agree. “Chhattisgarh has several issues related to Naxal violence, agriculture, tribals and so on, but communal agenda was never one of them. The state never saw communally motivated activities. Lord Ram is everywhere and in all of us, but that does not warrant practising soft Hindutva.”
Calling the elections in Patan ‘match fixing’, Jogi said: “Patan has always been a Chacha-Bhatija match which was fixed every time.”
Responding to the issues of corruption and ED raids, he said: “The BJP and Congress blame each other, allegations and counter-allegations fly during the campaign, but once the election gets over, they do not touch each other. Baghel, before coming to power, said he would arrest Raman Singh for corruption. Did it happen? In ED chargesheets, one can find multiple references to the chief minister but he is moving free too. These are all election gimmicks.”
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