Assembly Elections 2018: 3 leaders fight it out for throne of Chhattisgarh

With the Assembly elections approaching Chhattisgarh fast, three faces from three parties have emerged as top contenders — Raman Singh from the BJP, Bhupesh Baghel from the Congress, and Ajit Jogi, founder of the JCC and face of the third front in the state in alliance with the BSP and CPI. The three leaders — a doctor, a farmer and an engineer, respectively — come from different family and political background and ages, and are being closely watched on the horizon of the tribal dominated state which goes to polls later this month. Two are challengers to the throne while the other one is a defender.

Who will succeed in the fierce fight to win Chhattisgarh?

Raman Singh, Chief Minister

Dr Raman Singh, 66, is one of the tallest leaders in Chhattisgarh today. Considering his three terms as chief minister, he is the only such CM in right wing party who has played long innings.

Singh is carrying multiple responsibilities on his shoulder today — winning Chhattisgarh for his party for the fourth straight time and ridding the state of Maoist extremism being top priorities.  

An Ayurved doctor by training, he  often checks nadi and prescribes medicines. He, as the chief minister, has tried to bring development to the Naxal-infested state and raise the standard of the poor and tribals. Of course, Naxal menace continues in the state, which he is trying to do get rid of with the ray of development.

Dr Singh was born in Kawardha to Dr Vighnaharan Singh and Sudha Singh on October 15, 1952. His upbringing was extremely modest and of rural background where availability of food had always been a serious problem.

Those who know him for years say that the idea of free food scheme implemented in the state was out of his personal experiences of seeing the travails of the most backward and poor people around his village as a child. 

Considering his medicine background, he was made minister of state for health by then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for a short stint. 

When asked about the challenge from Ajit Jogi, he merely says: I am always more worried about his health. Now he is 72 and can’t much travel, so I don’t really know how much damage he can do to BJP. 

Clearly, BJP has reasons to depend upon him. The ‘coolest leader’ has also seen to it that no other party man comes close to him in terms of political stature. The only challenge he gets is from Brij Mohan Agarwal, the number two minister in his cabinet. An ambitious Agarwal has tried to secretly destabilise Singh, but to no avail. Their differences are well known in the BJP circles.

Ajit Jogi, Former chief minister

In late 60s when this young man with a mechanical engineering degree from the Maulana Azad College of Technology (now known as Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology), Bhopal got into the prestigious Indian Police Service, not many had believed in his political ambition and capabilities. Soon after getting into IPS, Ajit Jogi decided to try his luck with IAS and got it in first attempt. That was 1970. As collector of Raipur city, in early 80s he would go to receive many a top politicians, mainly Shukla brothers who were the tallest Congress leaders and ministers in then undivided MP.

Ajit Promod Kumar Jogi, once very close to Madhya Pradesh chief minister Arjun Singh who had kept him as collector of Indore for close to five years between 1981-86 after his stint in Raipur, is a fighter. He has battled many challenges in politics as well as in his personal life. After he entered the Rajya Sabha in 1986, thanks to Arjun Singh's proximity to the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, his young daughter committed suicide at his Indore house.

In the later part of his political career when he had already served a term as chief minister through wheeling and dealing, his son Amit was arrested and jailed on charge of a murder. This was just after he had met with an accident from which his survival looked very difficult. Jogi since then has been forced to move in a wheel chair, but it has never deterred him from taking on life and its challenges. He still manages to frequently travel to different parts of Chhattisgarh as well as New Delhi. He has a special bus which is bullet proof and has several facilities to comfort him after sitting for hours in his tailor-made wheel chair.

Known to be a crafty politician, he kept switching sides and loyalties in politics. He and the then Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijay Singh would not see eye to eye, though both were Arjun Singh loyalists. Yet, he forced 'Diggi Raja' to manage MLA votes for him to be the first chief minister of Chhattisgarh when the state was bifurcated on the intervening night of October 31 and November 1, 2000. While he managed to convince Sonia Gandhi, the then president of the Congress, of his loyalty in 2000, senior Congress leaders (even some of his followers) never trusted him; a reason why he was shown the door in 2016. He always wanted the Congress to be run on his whims and fancies, something Rahul Gandhi did not like. Most local congress leaders were against him and blamed him for the misrule and corruption that gave the BJP a grand opportunity to establish itself in the state.

The birth of Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (JCC) which has provided the third corner in this month's elections, and its truck with BSP, is the outcome of the ambitious fighter Jogi who does not accept a defeat under any circumstances. Just the opposite of Raman Singh in everything that matters in politics, Jogi remains the most watched politician from this small state.

Bhupesh Baghel, Chhattisgarh Congress chief

Bhupesh Baghel, an OBC leader from Durg, despite being the state Congress president for close to four years, does not have a great following within his party. As a transport minister in Digvijay Singh's cabinet in Madhya Pradesh and later in Jogi's Chhattisgarh cabinet in 2000, he has some administrative experience, but the Congress leader who is pushing 60 has been unable to galvanise the party rank and file to take on the BJP. And that's the biggest tragedy for the Congress party which is staking claim to beat the BJP at the hustings and form government in the state after 15 years, if that actually happens.

The tragedy with the Chhattisgarh Congress is that after the demise of Shukla brothers — Shyama Charan and Vidya Charan (their father Ravishankar Shukla was the first CM of undivided MP), the sidelining of a strong tribal leader Arvind Netam many years ago, and former MP chief minister Motilal Vora shifting his base almost entirely to New Delhi, the party has no towering charismatic leader in he state.

Baghel who succeeded Charan Das Mahant, a former union minister, as the PCC chief is a sitting MLA. Neither a great orator nor an organisational expert, Baghel is contesting election from Patan constituency. Having lost in 2008, he managed to stage a comeback after winning in 2013 and then rising to the position of PCC chief, and now he is the poster boy in the Assembly elections for the rand Old Party. 

The other two leaders of some standing in the Congress are Dr Mahant and TS Singhdeo, the leader of Opposition in the current Assembly. But Baghel is not on very good terms with either of them, which is resulting in factionalism, a charge Baghel stoutly refutes.