BJP secures absolute majority in Madhya Pradesh

MR CLEAN: The biggest role in the BJP's victory was played by CM Shivraj Singh Chauhan.

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Bhopal: The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) retained power in Madhya Pradesh with a comfortable majority bagging more than 140 of the 230 seats at stake, showing that the party's strategy of projecting a chief ministerial candidate with a clean image worked.

The BJP also adopted the Modi formula of dropping a large number of sitting MLAs to counter the local anti-incumbency mood. While the BJP's winning figure is put at 142, the exact number will be released by the poll panel Tuesday.

The biggest role in the BJP's victory was played by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan's clean public image. All through the campaign, his was the name that pulled the crowds on the campaign trail and even the BJP's national leaders were ignored by the voters.

"We were confident of getting a clear majority. The results show that our confidence was not misplaced. It is the victory of the party, its programmes and workers," BJP state president Narendra Singh Tomar said.

While the BJP focused on development, giving cheaper foodgrain, cheaper loans to farmers, and welfare schemes for the girl child, the factionalised Congress put all its stakes on the allegations of corruption and failure of the BJP government to utilise central funds.

This apart, accusations by one of the senior Congress leaders that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is involved in making bombs (referring to Sadhvi Pragnya Singh Thakur's arrest) did not go down well with the electorate.

"The Congress initially paved the way for our victory by charging the RSS with making bombs when the Pragnya Thakur issue came to the fore. This was something which might have hurt the feelings of the Hindu voters who feel alienated in their own country whenever the Congress takes any such step," said Deepak Vijayvargiya, former BJP spokesman.

The Congress, the main opposition, was also banking on the general presumption that Uma Bharti's Bharatiya Jan Shakti (BJS) party would cut into a large chunk of BJP votes and make its way to form the next government easier. But that did not happen. The firebrand Uma Bharti herself lost on her home turf in Tikamgarh.

On the other hand, Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) improved its tally, winning seven seats to the two it won last time in the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly. Though the percentage of votes it has bagged is yet to be computed, seeing the improvement in the number of its seats, it is presumed that it must have made a severe dent in the Congress vote bank.

The biggest folly of the Congress - which bagged 71 seats to the 38 it won in 2003 - was that it failed to bring all its factional leaders together. By the time the party's second list was out, some of its own veterans were writing its obituary.

Factional pulls in the Congress prevented the party from backing fresh faces and winnable candidates, which ultimately resulted in a large number of tickets being given to candidates who didn't have any chance against the BJP's spick and span poll strategy.

Apart from the anti-incumbency, the ruling BJP was also confronted with the Congress efforts of painting it 'corrupt', but the voters did not heed and most ministers who were projected as tainted by the Opposition returned to the house.

The BJP's carefully crafted poll strategy under the likes of Anil Dave, who headed its election think tank, worked well for the party.

State Congress spokesman K.K. Mishra said that no single person can be held responsible for the defeat and added that collective responsibility should be fixed for this defeat.