However, in a late-night meeting — which was Shah’s sole engagement in Bhopal on Tuesday — the Union home minister made it clear that neither the CM face nor the BJP chief would be changed.
Shah’s decision to travel to Madhya Pradesh was sudden. Till Monday, even top leaders from the poll-bound state, including the chief minister, were not aware of his plans, News18 has learnt. Shah made it clear that he would travel to Bhopal for a few hours for a party engagement.
On Tuesday, the home minister reached Bhopal at around 8.30pm and held a closed-door meeting that lasted for two-and-a-half hours. He was accompanied by BJP’s election ‘prabhari’ of Madhya Pradesh, Bhupendra Yadav, and co-incharge Ashwini Vaishnaw.
As asked by him, Chouhan, state president Sharma, state home minister Narottam Mishra, Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia — who hails from the state— Kailash Vijayvargiya, state ‘prabhari’ Muralidhar Rao, and Narendra Tomar were key names present in the meeting.
Many of these leaders are considered different power centres of the Madhya Pradesh BJP. However, during the meeting, Shah had a few simple messages — The party has to fight aggressively as a single unit and their involvement in poll preparation will be reviewed by Shah himself on a daily basis.
A BJP leader, who was present in the meeting, told News18 on the condition of anonymity: “Amit Bhai insinuated in clear terms that the CM face and state president stay and everyone has to abide by that.”
Shah complained that those in leadership positions were speaking in different voices. “This needs to stop right now,” he is believed to have told the top echelons of the Madhya Pradesh unit. Shah was also learnt to be unhappy with the BJP not being very “aggressive” in its campaign.
He asked to start the preparation of ‘Vijay Sankalp Abhiyan’, a reaching-out initiative of the BJP that is taken in the run-up to elections. Shah has told the Madhya Pradesh unit to keep the contour of the programme ready and he will be back in the state on the 30th of this month to give his go-ahead.
Turning to VD Sharma, who has seemingly locked horns with Chouhan, Shah said it is the duty of the ‘sangathan’ or the organisation to popularise the welfare schemes run by the state government under the leadership of Chouhan.
Those present in the meeting say Shah — through this meeting — made it apparent that Chouhan remains the CM face, which was expected. By asking Sharma to go ahead with the ‘Vijay Sankalp Abhiyan’, Shah has also signalled that Sharma isn’t going anywhere either. Shah has specifically tasked Sharma and state general secretary (organisation) Hitanand — who too was present in the meeting — with running a full-scale pro-Shivraj government campaign.
It was also a moment of pride for Bhupendra Yadav whose work as election in-charge of Prime Minister’s home state Gujarat last year won laurels from Shah. Shah asked those present to run campaigns in line with what Bhupendra Yadav did in Gujarat and yielded results. Now, Yadav is the election in-charge of Madhya Pradesh.
However, sources present in the meeting suggested that Shah was also careful not to hurt the ego of any of the leaders, many of whom have chief ministerial ambitions. Shah said he would oversee the campaign of the Madhya Pradesh election and not only monitor work on a daily basis but also try and make visits every 15-20 days. This means the entire state leadership will have to be on its toes.
Various surveys suggest a close contest between the BJP and the Congress in MP. Recently, Congress claimed that an RSS survey indicated the Grand Old Party’s victory.
