ELECTIONS '98 COMMENTARY
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BJP likely to form first government of Chhattisgarh

The general perception, says Purushottam paperwallah in Raipur, is that the Bharatiya Janata Party will win a majority in Chhattisgarh and form the first government of the new state, whose creation is a very real possibility as far as the locals are concerned. Businessmen in the region are also helping the BJP more, though with tighter fists.

Bad weather is another reason for the lacklustre campaign in Raipur. The dispiriting drizzle over the last few days has upset the plans of both the Congress and the BJP. While Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who flew all the way from Delhi to address a campaign meeting, had to content herself with sitting around for an hour in the airport and flying back, Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani's brief appearance in the city proved a literal damp squib.

"It must have been the smallest crowd Advani's ever pulled," says a journalist. "There were hardly 2,000 people."

"This is the wrong season for polls," says a top Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee member. Officially toeing the 'everything is fine, there is no dullness' line, he unwinds in private to confess that things are bad. "This is the crop season. In the rural areas, people are all in the fields till 4 o'clock. If you hold a meeting before that, no one will be around. So we have to wait till evening. But by 6 o' clock, as per the EC's rules, we have to shut off our loudspeakers," he says, then adds in the next breath, "Of course, that doesn't really stop us. Which EC agent is going to come deep into the rural areas?"

We chat on and my friend-of-the-moment unburdens himself some more. The Congress -- yes, his own party -- will not win in Chhattisgarh, he admits. All because of that fellow [Chief Minister Digvijay Singh] in Bhopal who has no vision. "The official version is that we will win a clear majority," he says bitterly, "but, because of all their corruption cases, we will not get more than 35 seats."

We chat some more, and he comes up with more nuggets: how Digvijay Singh's doings are going to prove the Congress's undoing in Chhattisgarh, how even S C Shukla, one of the strongest politicians in the area, will be affected ("he won't admit it, but all these are going to affect his margin"), and so on...

I guide him back to the campaign-without-fizz subject. What about funds? How short-supplied are the candidates?

"Funds are short," he agrees. "It's short with us because our own chief minister is discriminating against us. He's raising money and giving it to his own men. In Raipur, for instance, Brijmohan has enough money. Our candidate Paras Chopra is a poor (sic) chartered accountant. He cannot afford a big campaign -- not that he would have won even if could; he's too inexperienced and also has to bear Digvijay Singh's cross -- unless the party gives him money. And it has not."

The cash crunch finds ample reflection in the number of vehicles the candidates are using. If the earlier average was 15 per contestant, they are now making do with half that number, or less.

'The Congress campaign is not alive'

Assembly Election '98

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