One down, two to go. A day after sending a message by appointing senior Adivasi leader Vishnu Deo Sai the chief minister of Chhattisgarh, the BJP legislature party in Madhya Pradesh will meet in Bhopal on Monday evening to elect the state’s chief minister.
The meeting is expected to begin around 4 pm, with the party’s central observers Manohar Lal Khattar, the Haryana CM, Other Backward Classes (OBC) Morcha head K Laxman, and secretary Asha Lakra expected to arrive in Bhopal around 11 am, according to PTI. For four-time Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, this will be the moment of truth. Sidelined during the campaign, Chouhan nonetheless toured the state non-stop for months before the elections and the party reaped the benefits of his government’s welfare schemes as it swept the elections by winning 163 of the 230 Assembly seats.
But the focus throughout the campaign was on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the party fielded three Union Ministers, four more MPs, and a national general secretary to beat any sign of anti-incumbency. The strategy worked and the one to benefit may turn out to be one of these central leaders such as Pralhad Singh Patel, who is from an OBC community like Choudhan, Narendra Singh Tomar, or Kailash Vijayvargiya. Though he was not in the poll fray, Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, who helped the party retain its grip on the Gwalior-Chambal belt, also cannot be counted out.
Key fact: Since 2003, the BJP has had three CMs in Madhya Pradesh and all of them — Uma Bharti, Babulal Gaur, and Shivraj — have been from OBC groups. The share of OBCs in the population is about 50% of the population.
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Article 370 verdict
The Supreme Court is set to deliver its verdict on a batch of 23 petitions that challenged the constitutional validity of the Centre’s decision to abrogate Article 370 and bifurcate the state into the two Union territories of Jammy and Kashmir (J&K) and Ladakh, more than four years after J&K lost its special status. A five-judge Constitution Bench presided by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and including Justices S K Kaul, Sanjeev Khanna, B R Gavai, and Surya Kant will deliver the judgment.
Political context: When the Centre scrapped J&K’s special status in August 2019, the parties that comprise the Opposition INDIA bloc at present took different positions. While the AAP supported the Centre’s division, the Congress initially opposed the move but nuanced its position later. The Congress Working Committee (CWC), which met on August 6, criticised the government over the “unilateral, brazen and totally undemocratic manner in which Article 370 of the Constitution was abrogated” but did not demand the reinstatement of special status for J&K. The Left and the socialist bloc strongly believe that Article 370 should be reinstated as it was the only link between Jammu and Kashmir and the rest of India.
For the Sangh Parivar, the abrogation of Article 370 has been its oldest ideological project, with the RSS having passed the maximum number of resolutions to date — 27 — on Kashmir since 1953.
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On PM’s schedule
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the “Viksit Bharat @2047: Voice of Youth” initiative via video-conferencing on Monday. Modi will address vice-chancellors of universities, heads of institutes, and faculty members in workshops organised at Raj Bhavans across India. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said Modi’s vision was to actively involve the younger generation in the formulation of national plans, priorities, and goals for India.
One year of Sukhu government
Now the only state in the north that the Congress controls, the Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu government is set to celebrate one year of being in power at an event in Dharamshala. The government has battled devastation during the monsoon but claims that it has still managed to fulfil three of the 10 guarantees, including the restoration of the Old Pension Scheme, that it made in the run-up to the elections. “Work has already started on three more guarantees and the rest are in the planning phase,” Sukhu told The Indian Express.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra will attend the event in Dharamshala, while the BJP has announced it will hold protests in all districts.
To be published today in Political Pulse: Road to 2024, our weekly tracker on the BJP and the Opposition where we decode how the battle for the Lok Sabha is shaping up.