‘MAMA' RETURNS

THE BJP BETS ON SHIVRAJ SINGH CHOUHAN AGAIN TO NAVIGATE THROUGH A MINEFIELD OF PROBLEMS IN THIS CRUCIAL STATE

- Rahul Noronha

ON DECEMBER 13, 2018, FOLLOWING THE narrow assembly election win of the Congress over the BJP in Madhya Pradesh, then party president Rahul Gandhi tweeted a picture of himself with the two chief ministerial contenders—Kamal Nath and Jyotiraditya Scindia. Alongside ran a quote from Leo Tolstoy: ‘The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.’ Nath and Scindia paid no heed to the advice, their turf war culminating in the latter’s coup that pulled down the 15-month-old Congress government in MP. If anybody chose to remain patient, and was rewarded, it was Shivraj Singh Chouhan. The three-time BJP chief minister, who had been at the helm for 13 consecutive years, was back in the saddle on March 23. Withstanding a phase when he fell out of favour with the BJP central leadership, Chouhan bided his time, and when the moment came, he proved to be a heavyweight his rivals could not dislodge.

How did Chouhan bring himself back in the reckoning with his bosses in Delhi? His stint outside power had hardly been reassuring. In December 2018, soon after his election defeat, Chouhan had announced a statewide tour to reconnect with the masses, but the party’s central leadership asked him