image source, YEARS
There is a queue of vehicles outside the Chief Minister's residence in Shyamala Hills, Bhopal. A crowd of leaders and party workers comes and one is going out.
For the last 18 years, this has been the home of Shivraj Singh Chauhan, the tallest leader of Bharatiya Janata Party in Madhya Pradesh. He is the Chief Minister with the longest tenure so far in Madhya Pradesh.
Speculations have started about how long Shivraj Singh will stay in this Chief Minister's residence because the race for the post of Chief Minister has started among the leaders.
Many party leaders involved in this race are camping in Delhi. He is meeting big leaders and is also sharing pictures of those meetings on social media.
But Shivraj Singh Chauhan has not gone to Delhi. He is in Bhopal only. Sometimes going to the temple and sometimes inspecting “night shelters” at night. He is meeting the MLAs and workers visiting his residence throughout the day.
On Wednesday, he set out on a tour of Chhindwara where the Bharatiya Janata Party had to face defeat on all the seven seats. This is the stronghold of Congress state president and former Chief Minister Kamal Nath.
Why is he not going to Delhi? When I asked him this question during my meeting, he said, “Parliament session has started in Delhi. For this reason also senior leaders of our party have gone to Delhi. As far as I am concerned, I am directly engaged in my work here. The code of conduct has been removed, so there were some important tasks that had to be completed.”
BBC correspondent Salman Ravi interviewing Shivraj Singh Chauhan
Preparation for Lok Sabha elections
Shivraj says that instead of racing for the post of Chief Minister, his biggest goal is to win 29 out of 29 Lok Sabha seats.
He says, “The target before me is how can the Bharatiya Janata Party win 29 seats out of 29? And if our Prime Minister, who is God's gift to India, becomes the Prime Minister again, then garland him with 29 lotus flowers from Madhya Pradesh. That means give them 29 seats out of 29. And that is why I am going to Chhindwara where we could not win all the seven seats. I will boost the morale of the workers there so that we can win the Lok Sabha seat.”
Chhindwara is the only seat in Madhya Pradesh where BJP suffered a loss in the last Lok Sabha elections. Kamal Nath's son Nakul Nath is the MP from this seat.
Shivraj Singh Chauhan says that the seats where his party's current MLAs and ministers have faced defeat are also being reviewed. There are a total of 27 MLAs, including many senior ministers, who lost the elections.
The state's dynamic Home Minister Narottam Mishra and Agriculture Minister Kamal Patel even got 're-counting' done on their seats. But despite this he had to face defeat.
image source, YEARS
Doubt on CM post
Shivraj Singh Chauhan is definitely talking about not going to Delhi and reviewing the lost seats. But it can be understood from his words that he also has a doubt in his mind whether he will be handed over the command of Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh again or not.
However, signs of this had started appearing when the Bharatiya Janata Party started its campaign for the assembly elections being held in the state. It started with the visit of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, during which he also held a press conference in Bhopal while releasing the report card of the previous government.
In this press conference, in response to a question, he had clearly said that if the Bharatiya Janata Party wins the elections, then “it is the party's job to decide the face of the Chief Minister and this will be decided by the party only.”
This time Shivraj Singh Chauhan was not presented as the chief ministerial face in the assembly elections. In this election also the slogan was 'Modi in the mind of MP, MP in the mind of Modi'.
Then Bharatiya Janata Party released three lists of candidates, one after the other.
Shivraj Singh Chauhan's name was not among these. Speculations had started that he might not contest the elections this time. But then the fourth list came in which his name was given from his home area Budhni.
Earlier in the three lists, the party released the names of seven MPs who were fielded in the election. These included three Union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, Prahlad Patel and Faggan Singh Kulaste.
Apart from these, the party's Central General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya was also made the party's candidate from Indore-1 assembly seat.
image source, YEARS
Scindia also in the race
All these leaders were seen as the future Chief Ministers of Madhya Pradesh. Besides, the name of powerful leader of Gwalior-Chambal division Jyotiraditya Scindia is at the top of this list.
These signals were clear for Shivraj Singh Chauhan and the state unit of Bharatiya Janata Party.
However, a few months before the elections, seeing the popularity of the 'Laadli Brahmin Yojana' launched by Shivraj Singh Chouhan for women, when he was once again entrusted with the responsibility of campaigning, he went around the state and held meetings among the women voters. Went between.
During the conversation, Shivraj Singh Chauhan says that this time the vote percentage of Bharatiya Janata Party has increased 'historically' in Madhya Pradesh because of women voting in large numbers.
Bharatiya Janata Party got 48.55% votes in this assembly elections, which was 7.53 percent more than the previous assembly elections.
This time the party won 163 seats, which was 54 more seats than last time.
'Credit to women'
Shivraj Singh Chauhan claims that the credit for victory on these 54 seats goes to women voters.
For this he gives credit to all the schemes made during his tenure as Chief Minister.
He said that his government in Madhya Pradesh has launched a series of schemes for women, which the Bharatiya Janata Party benefited greatly in the elections.
Shivraj Singh Chauhan also won his seat, Budhni, with record votes. He won by more than one lakh four thousand votes and he claims that this happened because women not only voted for him but also gave money to contest the elections.
He believes that there were many reasons for the defeat of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the last assembly elections, including the promises of the Congress, but the discord between some castes was also a reason, which was now removed.
Shivraj Singh Chouhan completely denies that there was any kind of 'anti-incumbency' wave in the state.
Referring to the previous interview with BBC, he says that earlier also he was saying that Bharatiya Janata Party will form the government with a respectable majority.
He said, “I was using a respectful word because someone might call me a bigot. That's why I was not telling the number of seats. I was confident that we would definitely win this many seats.”
