POWER PLAY

Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel lines up a potent combination of religion, tradition and welfarism to keep the BJP at bay and win a second consecutive term at the helm

- SRAVANI SARKAR

Anticipation and enthusiasm was high in the Mathpara locality of Chhattisgarh capital Raipur on the morning of January 6 as a crowd, holding bamboo trays full of rice and vegetables, waited for Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel. They were celebrating Chher Chhera, a post-harvest local festival. Baghel soon made an entry and received the gifts, a key feature of Chher Chhera, which is now a public holiday in Chhattisgarh.

A day later, Baghel travelled to Rajim—a holy city located about 50km from the state capital—to inaugurate a 25ft-tall Ram idol. It was the third such idol to be installed in the state in the past few months under the ambitious Ram Van Gaman Path, a project aimed at developing 75 spots in the state linked to Ram’s vanvas.

Baghel returned to the capital a few hours later and met Union Home Minister Amit Shah at the airport, presenting him with a package of millets grown in the state. He wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi the next day, urging him to include millets in the list of grains distributed under the National Food Security scheme. Later in the day, Baghel inaugurated the first ‘Chhattisgarhiya Olympics’, a three-month-long traditional games competition.

In between all these engagements, Baghel also found time to criticise the “anti-constitutional stand” of Governor Anusuiya Uikey, following her refusal to sign two bills that proposed hiking caste-based quota in the state to 76 per cent—32 per cent for scheduled tribes and 27 per cent for OBCs. He also blamed the BJP for the recent communal flare-up in Narayanpur of Bastar region over the issue of conversion of tribals to Christianity.