Madhya Pradesh | Converging interests

On August 26, three new ministers were inducted in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan cabinet in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh. Two of them, Rajendra Shukla and Gauri Shankar Bisen, are senior MLAs, former ministers and Shivraj loyalists, so their new cabinet posts caused no surprise. However, behind the inclusion of the third—Khargapur MLA Rahul Singh Lodhi, who was sworn in as a minister of state—political observers detect the BJP’s caste compulsions before the polls as well as a growing entente between the current chief minister and his one-time predecessor and senior BJP leader Uma Bharti. Lodhi happens to be Bharti’s nephew.Shivraj and Bharti have been bitter rivals in the past. In 2003, as the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate, Bharti won a landslide in Madhya Pradesh, ending 10 years of Congress rule. She resigned in 2004 in a national flag dishonour case and was replaced by Babulal Gaur, who in turn made way for Shivraj in late 2005. Shivraj’s appointment and firm backing by the high command was a blow to Bharti, who had planned a comeback. Shivraj soon found her to be an implacable critic perennially seeking his ouster. Expelled from the BJP in 2006 due to ‘indiscipline’, Bharti formed the Bharatiya Jan Shakti Party, but eventually merged it with the BJP in 2011. Bharti contested and won in the 2012 Uttar Pradesh assembly polls, later became Union minister in the NDA government (2014-2019), and took a break from politics in 2020.According to experts, Bharti has been on the lookout for a re-entry into MP politics. Her 2022 demand for total prohibition in MP was a ploy towards that end, they say. Though her threat of a statewide agitation did not materialise and Shivraj’s government did not take immediate action, the excise policy announced for 2023-24 in February included the shutting down of ‘ahatas’ or open-air shops-cum-bars—a key demand of Bharti’s. The conciliatory move went down well with her; she soon softened and dropped the demand for complete prohibition. The move marked the start of a period of bonhomie between the two. The CM visited Bharti’s house in Bhopal and touched her feet in a show of respect; Bharti reciprocated by heaping praise on Shivraj. Even when expressing disappointment about not being invited to the Jan Ashirwad yatras launched from different parts of MP on September 5, Bharti praised Shivraj and said the yatras were planned by the central high command, thereby absolving the CM of any blame. Earlier, in December 2022, when her prohibition demand had lost traction, the feisty politician had made a reversion to a trusty theme for her ilk: caste. Bharti caused a stir in BJP ranks at a Bhopal meeting of the community she belongs to, the Lodhis, an influential agrarian group classified under the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). She said her caste fellows were free to vote for any party. In May 2023, Bharti released a list of 22 demands for the community. The prominent ones included renaming Dindori, a district in east MP, after Rani Avanti Bai, a mid-19th century Lodhi ruler who fought the British and is a community icon, a medical college after the warrior queen, giving more tickets to Lodhi candidates in the 2023 polls and the induction of a Lodhi MLA in the cabinet. Shivraj gave the coveted post to Bharti’s nephew, though it created discontent in the party on account of Rahul being a first-time MLA.Bharti’s growing influence over Shivraj came through elsewhere as well. On August 18, the BJP announced its first list of candidates for the assembly polls, which included Pritam Lodhi, a politician from the Gwalior-Chambal region considered close to Bharti. In August 2022, Pritam had used derogatory language towards the Brahmin community and was expelled from the BJP after it led to widespread resentment, especially in the Bundelkhand region, where Lodhis and Brahmins compete for political space. Bharti had advocated Pritam’s rehabilitation, by terming him a champion of Dalits and OBCs. And sure enough, Pritam was back in the BJP in March 2023.Lodhis are influential in Bundelkhand, the Gwalior region and in parts of Mahakoshal. Political analysts say they have strong community bonding and vote en masse, making them a critical vote bank. “The Lodhis have been aligned with the BJP since the Ayodhya movement. Though the Congress doesn’t have a big Lodhi leader, Lodhis fielded by the Congress win elections, demonstrating community voting,” says a BJP leader from Bundelkhand. While official figures are not available, it is estimated that Lodhis are the second biggest OBC community in MP after the Kurmis (OBCs comprise over 50 per cent of MP’s population). “Lodhis constitute around 12-14 per cent of the state’s population as per the 2011 census data submitted by the state government in the high court,” says Rameshwar Thakur, the state-appointed advocate for OBC quota-related petitions. In a bilateral contest with often wafer-thin margins, that’s too massive a bloc to ignore.But why did Shivraj have to humour Bharti, once his arch-rival? Indeed, to appease the Lodhis, he could well have called upon the assistance of Union minister Prahlad Patel, who too belongs to the community. “Shivraj has a non-confrontationist style. He aims to reduce the number of leaders opposed to him within the BJP when he goes for polls. He is a past master at gauging changing political equations and has put in place a tactical alliance with Bharti,” says political analyst Girija Shankar.The entente doesn’t guarantee unconditional Lodhi support for the BJP. On September 2, the youth wing president of the MP Lodhi Mahasabha, Mahesh Narwaria, said the CM had not honoured promises made to the community. Shivraj will also do well to remain wary of Bharti’s mercurial temperament and changing stand on issues.Edited By: Aditya Mohan WigPublished On: Sep 7, 2023Must Watch

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