Chhattisgarh: Raman Singh confident BJP will form govt on its own

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh said he was hopeful of coming back to power in the state. “I am confident that the BJP will form the government with full majority in Chhattisgarh. We will not require any support from any party to form the government,” said Singh to THE WEEK.

Singh said he will wait till December 11 rather than ponder over what the exit polls have predicted. “In Chhattisgarh, seats are limited and how much the third front will harm the BJP and the Congress is very difficult to say with opinion and exit polls. We need to wait till the result day,” said Singh.

Most exit polls have predicted a close contest between the BJP and the Congress in Chhattisgarh. While the CNX survey showed the BJP winning 46 of 90 seats in the state, the C-Voter survey gave an edge for the Congress, with 42 to 50 seats. The BJP has been ruling Chhattisgarh, under Singh, since December 2003.

An Ayurvedic doctor-turned politician, Singh is the longest serving chief minister of the BJP, having three years more than Narendra Modi’s tenure as Gujarat CM, and two years more than Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s tenure as Madhya Pradesh CM. In 2003, three years after Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh, Singh led the BJP to victory in the assembly polls held in the state that year. Prior to that, from 1999 to 2003, Singh was the Union minister of state for commerce and industry in the NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Interestingly, Karuna Shukla, the niece of Vajpayee, is contesting on a Congress ticket against Singh in Rajnandgaon seat. In 2013, Singh won from the same seat by a margin of 36,000 votes.

If Singh wins for the fourth consecutive term, he will become the sixth chief minister in the country to win four consecutive terms, and the first from the Hindi belt to achieve it. Pawan Kumar Chamling (Sikkim), Jyoti Basu (West Bengal), Gegong Apang (Arunachal Pradesh), Lal Thanhawla (Mizoram) and Manik Sarkar (Tripura) served for more than 15 years.

Shiv Kumar Dahariya, working president of the Congress in Chhattisgarh, said people have had enough of Singh over the years. “He is not as popular as he was. People don’t want him to continue as the chief minister. The Congress leaders in the state have worked really hard. The reading on the wall is clear. The Congress will form the next government in Chhattisgarh,” said Dahariya to THE WEEK.

Former chief minister of Chhattisgarh, Ajit Jogi, who left the Congress and formed the Chhattisgarh Janata Congress, aligned with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party in the elections in the state. Exit polls have given their alliance three to eight seats. Jogi, who now hopes to play the kingmaker, belongs to the Kanwar tribal community in the state. His alliance with the BSP, it is said, will significantly hurt the Congress’s chances in the state. The BSP had won more than 5.5 lakh votes in the 2013 elections in the state.

Speaking exclusively to THE WEEK, Jogi said he doesn’t believe in exit polls. “To be frank, I have not seen any of the exit polls. This is something alien to Indian society. We are blindly following the western society by giving importance to exit polls. Exit polls will never work in a heterogeneous society like ours.” He said the CJP will emerge a clear winner in the elections. “It is just matter of a few days, let us wait,” said Jogi.

Tamradhwaj Sahu, the Congress’s only Lok Sabha member from Chhattisgarh, said the party's high command would take a stand at an appropriate time on whether to tie up with Jogi’s party and the BSP. “I know that we will form the government in the state. But I am not the right person to take a call on whether we should ally with other parties. We hope for good results,” said Sahu to THE WEEK.

He was projected as the face of the party in Chhattisgarh and was even asked to contest in the state election to counter infighting among party leaders in the state. Sahu is the head of the Congress’s national OBC cell. If the Congress wins the state comfortably, Sahu could be the next chief minister of Chhattisgarh.