Chhattisgarh’s first Chief Minister Ajit Jogi after rebelling against the Congress in 2016, is campaigning for the coalition between his regional outfit Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J) which has a seat-sharing pact with Mayawati’s BSP and the CPI.
The bureaucrat-turned-politician, while exuding confidence on the coalition’s success in the upcoming Assembly polls, tells Ejaz Kaiser that only regional parties can stop BJP from returning to power in state and Centre.
Your pre-poll alliance with BSP is seen as a political masterstroke. Is your fight with BJP or Congress?
Our fight is with the BJP. The Congress has become irrelevant. We are committed to uprooting the Raman Singh-led BJP government. The alliance will damage both BJP and Congress.
Uncertainty prevails on your contesting the elections?
The BSP- JCC(J)-CPI coalition demanded that I should not confine myself to contesting elections from any particular seat and focus on campaigning for all 90 Assembly segments. So, I had declared that I am not in the poll fray.
However, people of Marwahi have requested me to contest from there. They said I need not campaign at all for Marwahi and the people would campaign on my behalf. So, I am seriously considering their plea.
Mayawati supported you as Chief Ministerial candidate in Chhattisgarh. Will you then be supporting her as the prime ministerial candidate in the 2019 polls?
It’s high time there is an alliance of like-minded non-Congress, non-BJP parties at the Centre. We would like to see this alliance come to power. It had partly happened earlier in 1977 under Morarji Desai, in 1979 under Charan Singh, in 1989 under VP Singh and Chandrashekhar and then in 1996 under HD Deve Gowda and IK Gujral.
However, on these occasions, either the Congress or BJP was supporting the government from outside. In 2019, we are hopeful that under the leadership of Mayawati, a non-Congress, non-BJP alliance will form the government.
Political experts see you more in the kingmaker’s position.
We do not call ourselves kingmaker or king. We want to make the people of Chhattisgarh the king.
What’s your winning strategy as you carry out an extensive campaign for your alliance?
People have seen 15 years of BJP misrule. They had been voting for BJP since they didn’t find an alternative in the Congress. But now a change is inevitable since they have a clear-cut option in the wake of our coalition.
What if things go awry and your alliance can’t form government?
It’s a hypothetical question, as we are sure that the people of Chhattisgarh will now vote for a government that will be run by them.
There is a perception that your alliance will eat into anti-BJP votes and enable CM return?
Every segment of society is upset with the BJP and people don’t have any hopes from the Congress. So we will get their vote share and form the Government.
The business community that has been a strong supporter of the BJP is disenchanted due to its anti-trader policies specially demonetisation and poor implementation of GST, besides the lack of control over administration and rampant corruption. Singh’s return as CM is out of question.
You are called BJP’s B-team.
We are neither B team nor C team. We are ‘Team CG’, i.e. Chhattisgarh. Had we been the B-team, I wouldn’t have been arrested, a case of robbery would not have been registered against me, my caste would not have been raised on false grounds and my son wouldn’t have been put behind bars under false charges of murder conspiracy. Despite these charges being framed by BJP government, courts acquitted us all.
How about the Modi factor this time? Will it help in Chhattisgarh?
People are aware of Raman Singh’s poor governance in whose name the election is fought. Modi isn’t in the picture as the so-called Modi wave of 2014 no longer exists. Only regional parties can stop BJP or Modi from coming to power.
In 2014, during the Modi wave, only regional forces stopped BJP from winning in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and earlier Bihar. The results of Karnataka Assembly elections and recent bye-elections in UP have further established the importance of regional parties.