Lucky mascot
Everyone in the BJP organisation says that the party's state unit president is very lucky. Immediately after Sharma took over charge, the Congress government was dethroned and the BJP formed a government. In the bye-elections, the BJP got 19 seats out of 29, and, because of this win, the BJP government got enough strength to run the state for a full three years. Afterwards, the BJP won three seats out of four in other by-polls. Few expected that the BJP would form a government after the 2023 assembly election, but the party won the polls with a huge majority. This is the reason why it is said that after Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Narendra Singh Tomar, Sharma is the party’s lucky mascot under whose leadership the BJP has been maintaining a winning spree.
Happy but tense
A leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, who has won the recently held Vidhan Sabha election, is happy but tense. The police registered a case of serious nature against him during the election. The legislator is tense, thinking that the case may weigh on him in the coming days. After his victory, when a BJP leader congratulated him, he requested the leader to cross off his name from the case. A case has also been registered against the supporters of this legislator. Now they are also worried, assuming lest it should be a problem for them, too. A leader of the BJP organisation pulled out all the stops to make him a legislator, but now, the leader concerned is trying to find a way to rescue the law-maker. Else the election outcome has bolstered this leader.
Was it a coincidence?
A coincidence, which occurred to a legislator between the day of polling and the counting of votes, is being discussed among those who are close to the law-maker. After the polling, the legislator went to meet a powerful leader of the BJP, who wanted to know from the law-maker about the party’s prospects of a win in the election. The legislator responded with confidence that he would win, but the party leader replied back: should that happen, the BJP would get 160 seats. The coincidence is that the BJP has won the election and got three seats more than 160. The BJP legislator was fighting the election against a former minister of the Congress, who is considered influential in his constituency. Against this backdrop, neither the BJP expected its leader to win, nor the Congress its leader to lose. Ergo the legislator’s victory surprised the BJP leaders as well as the Congress high command.
Fund crunch
The cash-strapped Congress is facing a major problem in Madhya Pradesh after its defeat. The problem is how to meet daily expenses to run the party. MPCC president Kamal Nath was managing the expenses, but after the party’s defeat, he has lost interest in MP. The Lok Sabha elections are going to be held after four months from now. So there may be an upheaval in the party over meeting the daily expenses that it needs to run the organisation. After the defeat of the Digvijaya Singh-led government in 2003, it was difficult for the Congress to meet the day-to-day expenses which its leader had to cut several times in the past 20 years. There is no such leader in the party as can supply money to run the setup, so if Nath pulls his hands back, the party will be in a financial mess again.
Bitter pill
John F Kennedy’s famous saying – Victory has a hundred fathers, but defeat is an orphan – seems to be apt to Madhya Pradesh, especially after the results of the recently held assembly election were declared. Kennedy’s saying is a harsh reality. You may like it or not, but you have to accept it. Because the BJP has won the election, there are many to lay claim to the party’s victory. A few former legislators recently met a senior leader of the party and tried to relate the stories about how they had a fling at the party’s win. Once they finished their stories, the senior party leader told them to reel off the names of the polling agents of their respective areas; and how much hardships they may have faced during the election. Immediately after that, the former legislators began to scratch their heads and stammer. On the contrary the senior leader of the party rattled off the names of all the polling agents one by one, leaving the former legislators fixed. For the former legislators it was a bitter pill to swallow.
Slow and steady
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) began its electioneering as slowly as a tortoise crawls. The opposition Congress that began the race a little early was moving as fast as a hare, leaving the ruling party far behind, thinking that it had won the race, so the party fell asleep midway as the bragging rabbit did. But when the party leaders woke up, they found their competitor, crawling slowly but steadily, romped home. Congress leaders were so confident of a win that they even formed a ministry and identified the portfolios in the cabinet, besides the positions in the boards and corporations, which they were yearning for. They also got their twinsets stitched for the oath-taking ceremony, but the poll outcome dashed their hopes, for they have to wait for another five years to take out those outfits from their wardrobes. Or they may get such dresses stitched before the next assembly election. The other day a Congress leader disappointed by the humiliating defeat was telling a colleague: “If we cannot serve the people as ministers, we can do so as sanitary workers.” The moral of the story is – slow and steady wins the race.
