BHOPAL: Assembly polls are a year away in Madhya Pradesh, but the ruling BJP has plunged into full-fledged election mode. Aiming to hold onto the 166 seats it won in the 2013 polls and zoom to 200 seats in 2018, the party is taking stock of its prospects in each of the 230 seats in the state. As part of the exercise to field only winnable candidates, the BJP is using internal surveys to gauge the performance of its MLAs and ministers.
Sources said the ruling party’s parent outfit RSS has also used the wide network of its workers on ground zero to feel the public pulse about the BJP legislators. The survey puts 50-70 legislators from Bundelkhand, Mahakaushal, Baghelkhand and Malwa-Nimar in the danger zone due to unsatisfactory performance. The maximum discontent among people against MLAs is in the Malwa-Nimar region, the epicentre of violent farmers’ agitation in June this year.
BJP had won 40-odd seats in the Malwa-Nimar region in 2013, while Congress had got just four to five seats in the 16 districts of the same region. MLAs who won with margins of 5,000 to 10,000 votes are under the party’s scanner, and some of them might not be fielded next year. This is being kept in mind in order to thwart any plans by the opposition Congress to capitalise on these seats by raising the issue of non-performance of legislators, sources within the party said.
Reports of the surveys have also been cross-matched with intelligence reports about the MLAs’ performance, and those whose performance is not satisfactory have been hinted about being ready to “perform or perish”. CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan has also formed a team to get a factual report about the popularity of his ministers and MLAs.
Respondents were asked a host of questions spanning from the overall image of MLAs (including their clan, caste and community), their actual performance and accessibility to people, ability to carry government schemes to the ground and other aspects such as allegations of corruptions against the legislator or kin. Respondents were asked to name alternative winnable candidates from each seat.
BJP general secretary Vishnu Dutt Sharma told The Sunday Standard, “The party is a big family, and keeping tabs on the performance of its rank and file and public representatives is a continuous process. The party also expects its representatives to improve their performance for living up to people’s expectations at the end of the day.”