Once struggling to find someone among its legislators who could be chief minister, the Congress is suddenly caught in the problem of plenty in Chhattisgarh. Preparing for a hard battle to wrest the state from the BJP in the assembly elections scheduled for later this year, this is not a happy situation for the party. To make matters more complicated, there’s Ajit Jogi.
Chhattisgarh—eastern Madhya Pradesh till it was carved into a new state—had been the traditional power base of the Congress for long. Not long ago, the BJP was considered an usurper here.
The region provided four Congress chief ministers—Pandit Ravi Shankar Shukla, his son Shyama Charan, Raj Naresh Chandra Singh and Moti Lal Vora, besides two (DP Mishra and Arjun Singh) who were elected from Chhattisgarh—to rule Madhya Pradesh and always accounted for a bulk of the MLAs of the ruling party in Madhya Pradesh. However, it failed to develop a second rung of leadership in the region, which has been haunting ever since Chhattisgarh came into being.
At the time of the creation of the state in November 2000, the Congress brought 62 MLAs as its share in the 90-member assembly. The party was called upon to form the government. The nomination for the post of chief minister went to Ajit Jogi, who was then a sitting member of Lok Sabha from Shahdol in Madhya Pradesh. With a separate unit coming into being, it became obligatory on the party to name a chief for the state unit. This was never seriously done in the first three years when Jogi doubled as the de-facto chief of the party.
By the time the party came to face the first assembly elections in 2003, Jogi and his son had managed to alienate the traditional Congress voter to such an extent that the results saw the party’s tally slide from 62 to 37 and the BJP seizing the power. The results meant more than losing power. Immediately, after the announcement of the results, Jogi was caught in what later became known as cash-for-vote scam. There was a crude attempt at buying off some BJP legislators after the results were announced. Worse, there was the disclosure of this letter from Jogi to the then governor promising support to the breakaway group in forming the government, purportedly with the approval of the central leaders.
His party’s immediate response was to suspend him from the party and distance itself from the disgraceful conduct of its leader. Jogi was later charged and the case is still pending final disposal in the court of law.
The party never recovered thereafter. Jogi, who had been facing charges of corruption since 1987 besides those challenging his claims of being a tribal, burdened himself with more and more cases of cheating, forgery, corruption and falsity during and after quitting his chief ministership.
Ajit Jogi was the only leader the party had invested in since 2000. An IAS officer till he resigned in 1986 to file his nomination to Rajya Sabha, by the time Jogi was nominated as the chief minister, he already had 15 years of experience as a parliamentarian behind him. A clever orator and communicator, he created during his three years rule a stable constituency for himself among youth and Dalits. Jogi evoked extreme responses among the electorate.
His hardcore and vocal fans, however, were vastly outnumbered by his staunch and often mute critics. His son Amit, who was booked by the CBI during Jogi Sr’s rule for organizing and backing the sting operation in which a BJP Union minister Dilip Singh Ju Deo was caught on tape taking bribe, was soon booked in a murder case of a rival NCP leader. This only tilted the balance of opinion in favour of the critics, many of whom found the idea of seeing the father-son duo returning to power repulsive.
The balance of feelings and emotions has never altered. And this worried Congress which took almost eight years of the new state to find and groom a candidate—Nand Kumar Patel—to be appointed as the first full-time state unit chief. Besides, after almost seven years of having no representation in the Union cabinet, Charan Das Mahant was appointed as a minister of state in the UPA II government. Besides these, many other faction leaders and influential individuals have succeeded in growing and strengthening their roots amongst their followers. The list includes veteran Vidya Charan Shukla who came back to the party after the 2003 elections.
The party in the last one year has managed to achieve considerable success in reining in the faction leaders and put up a semblance of unity bar in one case – that of a one-man-army led by its irrepressible wheelchair bound General Ajit Jogi and his chief-of-staff, son Amit, who controls the dominant section of the Youth Congress in the state.
The trouble with the Congress is that it cannot be sure of the wisdom of going into the battle with this formidable ally as part of the formation. The party cannot afford to leave this group alone to shop for new allies either.
Jogi and his band of vocal followers have managed to create ruckus and disruptions in all major party events and remind the leadership of the potency of their nuisance value. The complaint of his opponents—and this include all in the party except Jogi and his son—is that the father-son duo run a parallel organisation that is detriment to the party’s interests. Be it the party general secretary BK Hariprasad with whom he had a well reported heated verbal duel on stage to fisticuffs his supporters have been regularly having in his presence with other party men and leaders.
People who are not committed to the Congress are not likely to vote for the party if it helps Jogi come back to power. This fact is not a secret in the state. Equally well known is the fact that Jogi would not leave the Congress at peace unless he receives his pound of flesh.
Some observers believe the reason for Jogi getting restive and acting pricey of late is the realization that time is running out for him. The plethora of cases that have been going on in various courts of the country would start coming to the end soon. Jogi would like to see the cheque encashed before the bank goes bust.
To what extent the party readies itself with a deal that succeeds in reining in Ajit Jogi will decide the party’s fate in the assembly elections due later this year.
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