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Assembly Polls : Congress nervous, BJP wooing dalits

	September 29, 2003

The Congress Chief Ministers of states going to the polls are showing signs of nervousness as the deadline approaches. Their biggest worry is the anti-incumbency factor. Except for Delhi Chief Minister Shiela Dixit, no other Chief Minister is fully confident of retaining power. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Ghelot as well as Chattisgarh Chief Minister Ajit Jogi are doing their best to beat the BJP onslaught. There are reports that the party high command is contemplating action against Jogi who is in deep trouble with many inquiries haunting him like the forgery case as well as the issue of his tribal status.

A worried Jogi came to Delhi even as Congress high command was considering pre-emptive action against him and met party president Sonia Gandhi. It is believed that the party chief is considering pre-emptive action against Jogi in case a chargesheet is filed against him in the case of forgery being investigated by the CBI. The CBI is investigating the document produced by Jogi earlier this year to allege that the Centre is using its intelligence agencies for maligning senior Congress leaders.

While the Congress is in two minds on the poll fall out of changing a chief minister now, it is believed that the party would wait to see if concrete charges are framed against him.

Sonia Gandhi’s worry is the legal noose tightening over Ajit Jogi. With the CBI closing in on him with a possible chargesheet in a forgery case and a local court severely indicting him over alleged fudging of his caste certificate, the party president, sources said, is considering whether she should take pre-emptive action. Sources said what makes this more serious is the fact that signals have come from top levels of the Government to the effect that Jogi is heading for trouble.

If he is chargesheeted, the party will find it difficult to defend his staying on as the Chief Minister, a scenario that’s a nightmare for the Congress as it prepares for polls in the state. When contacted in Bastar, Jogi said : ‘’There is no question of my stepping down.’’ Asked what he would do if he was charge-sheeted, he said: ‘’They do all kinds of fake things, why should we succumb to them? They are spreading a canard. It’s (getting him to quit) not so easy. The Governor and the Attorney General have to be taken into confidence, and the PM has to be involved.’’

Jogi may put up a brave face but there’s disquiet in the party. To change the horse midstream and that too less than two months before the elections is not easy. As it is, the battle in Chhatisgarh had become a Jogi versus the rest affair, and not so much a Congress versus BJP fight. Also, what happens in Chhatisgarh will also have a ripple effect in Madhya Pradesh.

There are already two cases against Jogi going on in the Shahdol and the Bilaspur courts. Both challenge his tribal status, the charge being that he used a fake Scheduled Tribe certificate to contest elections. What may, however, turn out to be more damaging is the chargesheet by the CBI expected in early October. The agency had filed an FIR in the case of forgery of the IB document but Jogi claimed that this was against ‘’unknown persons’’ and not against him.

Jogi had in a way invited this trouble when he had written to the Prime Minister in March this year alleging that the Home Ministry had launched an operation codenamed ‘’Black Sea’’ to malign him. He had released to the press copies of what he had called a ‘’top secret/confidential’’ document supposedly by the IB, though the IB denied it. That document listed cases that the IB was supposed to be investigating against him-of money he had allegedly stashed away in a Swiss bank, his three ‘kothis’ in Delhi, and other properties he had allegedly acquired in Mumbai and Dehradun.

The Prime Minister had asked the CBI to investigate, the Income Tax department was also roped in to look into charges of Jogi’s disproportionate wealth. The IT department even carried out raids in connection with the case. ‘’I am not a demented person to forge a letter against myself,’’ Jogi said about the CBI case.

Besides the CBI case, there is the matter pending in the Shahdol court. The court recently ordered that cases under several Sections, including Section 420 of the Indian Penal Code, be registered against Jogi for allegedly using a fake scheduled tribe certificate. The police have not yet registered an FIR against the chief minister but are required to do so before the next hearing which is listed for October 18.

His opponents managed to secure a caveat from the court against any stay that he may seek. He will also have to list all the cases that are pending against him when he files his nomination papers. The central charge in the Shahdol court is that Jogi used a ST certificate which was issued in 1967 from Pendra tehsil of Bilaspur district. When the Shahdol Chief Judicial Magistrate found that there was nothing like a Pendra tehsil in 1967 and that it came into existence only in 1981, he ordered that a case of forgery be registered against him. Now, Jogi will first have to prove that the 1967 certificate is genuine.

Meanwhile, the Congress is facing anti-incumbency of a different kind in Madhya Pradesh led by Chief Minister Digvijay Singh. This is in the form of vidhayak pratinidhi - representatives of legislators - who have become a law into themselves and sometimes have a higher profile than the legislators they represent on various local bodies officially. Singh may be proud of implementing Panchayati Raj in the state but the practice of nominating representatives is not only going against the democratic spirit but has created a parallel power structure at the local level and ignored the principle of accountability.

As per reports reaching the AICC headquarters in New Delhi, people living in villages or blocks consider the representatives as “real” MLAs who take part in the meetings of panchayats, blocks, municipalities in “official” capacity. While all parties are affected by the problem of vidhayak pratinidhis, the Congress takes the cake as it not only has a large number of MLAs but also has more in the SC/ST category, who are vulnerable.

The social impact of vidhayak pratinidhis is that the upper caste businessmen use them as tools to serve their economic interests in villages. This is because the backward castes are not aware about their rights due to lack of education and poverty, they said. But by and large the “ dummy” MLAs give directions to the local officials about works and recommend works to be undertaken in the legislators development fund similar to the MPLAD scheme.

“They work as an ‘agent’ of legislators,” party sources said and recalled how some MLAs had faced the anger of people against such pratinidhis in the last election. A prominent leader had to promise to remove his “representative” after the polls held in 1998 but could not do so. This is because the pratinidhis have become more influential at the local level and handle the political management. Even district magistrates have to follow their directives in the allotment of work contracts, sources said.

“In Madhya Pradesh, anti-incumbency is not against MLAs, ministers, chief minister or Sonia Gandhi. If it works, it would certainly be against vidhayak pratinidhis,” observed party leaders. “The coming Assembly elections are going to be tough for the Congress because the government has hardly addressed the real issues - employment generation, education and health facilities - leave alone power supply and pathetic roads,” they viewed. “But the Congress could retain power because of the fighting in the BJP ranks,” they said.

The state is dominated by OBCs, tribals, SCs and STs but these sections hardly get minimum wages. The chief minister has constructed school buildings in villages but there are no teachers.



BJP wooing dalits (low castes)

The main opposition party in Madhya Pradesh, the BJP, is led by sadhvi Uma Bharti. Projecting her as the potential Chief Minister has three objectives. As a Hindutva (Hindi activism) protagonist and a sadhvi to boot they hope to retain traditional hardcore supporters; to bring in the backward caste vote as Bharti is an OBC, and to appeal to the sensibilities of the fairer sex since she is a woman.

The BJP is also trying to woo dalits (low castes) who with tribals forms 20 per cent of the state’s voters and tends to move as a group with either Congress or BSP. They have promised that if voted to power they would install statues and rename buildings and schools after tribal and Dalit freedom fighters. A long list of tribal leaders is ready and they plan to issue pamphlets and posters of these unsung heroes. This is the easy option that most political parties plump for - cosmetic sops without having to part with real power.

When Mayawati was Chief Minister in UP she went on a renaming spree and erecting statues of Dalit icons on most crossroads. But she was criticised by many, including dalits (low castes) for thinking that the empty gesture would go down well with the electorate. The essentially upper caste parties have tended to be condescending to OBCs, dalits (low castes), Tribals and minorities offering sops at strategic intervals to keep them quiet, while reserving the cream for the upper castes. But this may no longer work.