BJP grapples with CM-face question on Rajasthan poll terrain

Jaipur There’s a question mark over the Bharatiya Janata Party’s parivartan yatras which will mark the official launch of the election campaign in Rajasthan: When the first rally is held on September 2 at the Trinetra Ganesh Temple in Ranthambore, will former chief minister Vasundhara Raje show up?

After all, the December assembly elections will be the first one in 20 years, where Raje is not the party’s chief ministerial face, although, the party’s convention over the past decade in states where it is not in power is to not name a chief ministerial candidate.

Still, the uncertainty over leadership in the BJP is perhaps reflected in the fact that the party first decided to have four simultaneous yatras with leaders such as CP Joshi, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat and Satish Poonia, along with Raje, and then decided to have one yatra first, with all leaders present to drive home the idea of a collective leadership ahead of the coming elections.

For the record, Raje who is camping in Delhi, did not commit to her participation although an aide said that she will be there. And while surveys done both by the BJP and the Congress predict a win for the former, what’s worrying the BJP is feedback that the Gehlot government isn’t as badly off as an incumbent government in the state is expected to be. In fact, C-voter’s recent survey said that Gehlot government would see its vote share go up from 39.3% to 41%, although its seat share is likely to be about 80 out of 200.

In this scenario, the party prefers to have Raje playing on their team rather than being actively unhappy.

“It’s incorrect to think that Vasundharaji is not there,’’ said the new party chief in the state appointed in March, Chittorgarh lawmaker CP Joshi. “She has been attending all the meetings.’’ Joshi and other senior leaders hope that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pan-India popularity along with their attack on the Gehlot regime on issues such as exam paper leaks (there have been several), will ensure a win. And so, while previous election seasons saw giant posters emerge with Raje’s image across the city, this time there are no personalities yet in BJP’s campaign posters. The ad campaign at the moment plays on BJP being the smarter alternative with the catchphrase, “BJP hai samadhan” (BJP is the solution). Even the party office sports the image is of a giant lotus instead of the local or national leadership. And every one is too quick to emphasise that there’s nothing unusual about the change of strategy this time around.

“We are collectively fighting the election this time,’’ said former state party chief Satish Poonia. “There are so many problems with the Gehlot government that we are focussing on that and we are comfortably ahead in the polls.’’ The party is also trying to focus on certain advantages that come with a collective leadership. Such as the appeal to a wider caste base.

For instance, one of the persons being seen as a key leader from the state is Union minister Bhupender Yadav who represents the significant OBC community. Then, there is Poonia who represents Jats , a community that accounts for 15% of the state’s population.

Consolidating the caste vote is important, especially because of the challenge from Jat leaders such as Hanuman Beniwal whose Rashtriya Loktantrik Party is threatening to fight from a significant number of seats this time around. In 2018, it won three out of 58 seats it contested, and this time Beniwal has said that his party will contest all 200.

“Our strength is not from individual faces,’’ said Joshi, “The BJP’s strength is from its cadres. This isn’t like the Congress where one leader leaves and a bunch of his supporters shift their votes. In our party, people vote for the ideology.’’

The BJP is also hoping that it will win a disproportionate share of votes from first-time voters. Out of the 50 million voters in the state, 6.6 million are those that will be voting for the first time this year. “The people who are born between 2000 and 2005, they have only Narendra Modi in their consciousness,’’ said the former head of the party’s youth wing Himanshu Sharma, adding that such voters only care about “their aspirations”.

And so barely four months before polling, the party is focussed on registering a maximum of these 6 million new voters. They recognise that with charting a brand new path and new strategy, there are risks involved. However, 2023 is seen as the perfect time to take a gamble and let a new leadership evolve in the state that goes beyond 73-year-old Gehlot and 70-year-old Raje.

“Our win is certain,’’ said party worker Anuradha Maheshwari, when asked about the CM candidate. “It’s not very clear who will be CM but Gehlot’s schemes aren’t working.’’

Yet others hope that this phase of collective leadership is only temporary. “In the end, Vasundharaji will emerge. Who else is capable of winning?’’ asked Banke Lal.

In an interview to HT earlier this week, Rajasthan chief minister and senior Congress leader Ashok Gehlot said lack of a CM candidate by the BJP is a “big problem” for the Congress.

“We can’t properly attack them (without a rival CM candidate). We will have to just change our approach.”

Political commentator and former professor at University of Rajasthan, Rajan Mahan, said “sidelining” Raje may weaken the BJP’s campaign.

“If Vasundhara is sidelined, it might weaken the BJP’s campaign considerably. Despite promoting several younger leaders, no other BJP leader has the same mass appeal as Raje in Rajasthan, an appeal that’s not restricted by caste or region and of course. She has a special connect with women. Besides party workers, BJP voters see Raje as the party’s mascot in the state for the past two decades and could feel rather confused/demoralised in her absence. How Raje and her loyalists will react to her being sidelined is also a critical question. Without Raje, the BJP will be dependent mainly on PM Modi’s face and popularity - which as Karnataka showed is not always a winning strategy.”

In some ways, 2023 is reminiscent of 1998 where one party had a CM face, (BJP’s Bhairon Singh Shekhawat) while the Congress went with collective leadership of Ashok Gehlot, Rajesh Pilot, Naval Kishore Sharma, and Mahipal Maderna. The collective leadership worked and the party won 153 out of 200 assembly constituencies. Gehlot became chief minister. Can the BJP do the same in 2023?