Dantewada by-poll defeat exposes BJP's divided house in Chhattisgarh

Election mismanagement led to the party's defeat in Dantewada

Just two days ahead of the by-election on September 23 in Dantewada, a former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) minister, along with a senior party functionary, was camping at the district headquarters of the party, waiting to disburse money to local leaders given the job of booth management.

However, most did not turn up.

The former minister, who was assigned the task of election management in the southern part of the constituency, enquired about the cold response of the cadre. To his surprise, local functionaries candidly told him that the money offered was not even 25 per cent of the expenses they had budgeted for and they were prepared to defray the cost themselves.

The BJP lost the by-poll to the Congress.

This was an instance of election mismanagement that led to the BJP’s decimation in the tribal heartland of Bastar. Of the 12 assembly seats in Bastar, the BJP won only Dantewada in the Assembly polls last year. The by-election took place following the death of BJP MLA Bheema Mandavi, who was killed by Maoists ahead of the Lok Sabha election in April. The BJP fielded his widow, Ojaswi, ostensibly to get sympathy votes.

“Initially the position of the BJP was comfortable and there was no doubt that Ojaswi would win,” said Rajendra Vajpayee, a political observer in Jagdalpur. Bastar voters are sensitive and have always showed sympathy for victims, he said, adding that the 2013 Assembly polls were also an example of this. The Congress routed the BJP then by winning eight seats because of the Jheeram Ghati Maoist attack, which wiped off the top leadership of the party in the state in May that year.

Despite this, the strategic failure of the BJP, coupled with negligence about booth management, in which the party claims expertise, led to its humiliating defeat in Dantewada.

Never before, not even during the time of Mahendra Karma, who incidentally died in the 2013 attack, had the Congress won in Dantewada by more than 6,000 votes. This time its candidate and Karma’s widow, Devti, trounced Ojaswi by about 11,197 votes.

The lack of seriousness of the BJP’s election management could be gauged from the fact that its Chhattisgarh chief, Vikram Usendi, camped in the constituency for just two days while his Congress counterpart, Mohan Markam, stayed there for 22 days. Both are from the Bastar region.

BJP leaders say their movement is restricted because a major part of the constituency falls in the pocket left-wing extremists call their “liberated zone”. Former chief minister Raman Singh, who headed the election campaign, complained that the district administration did not permit BJP workers to move in the interior areas though it provided a thick security cover to Congress functionaries.

Simmering differences within the BJP spilled out in the open during the election. Singh’s opponents were kept away from the by-election. “The Raman Singh camp anticipated that the BJP would ride on a sympathy wave and win,” a senior BJP leader said.

Former minister Brijmohan Agrawal, known to be unfriendly with Singh, is considered a master strategist in the party. But he was kept out of the picture. Instead, MLA Shivratan Sharma was made election convener despite his lack of knowledge about the constituency. People from outside Dantewada, though they were neither acquainted with the political geography of Dantewada nor familiar with grassroots workers of the party, were asked to do election management. A senior party leader admitted he was visiting the area (in Dantewada) for the first time in 30 years.

The BJP is likely to repeat the mistake in Chikrakote in Bastar, which will have a by-election later this month. The mid-term election became necessary because Congress MLA Deepak Baij was elected to the Lok Sabha from Bastar. The BJP has fielded Lacchuram Kashyap despite the cadre’s reservations about him because he had lost twice in succession.