Given the political scenario obtaining at present, the traditional vote banks of both the BJP and the Congress – the two main players in the state’s political arena - stand fragmented.

The SC-ST Atrocities Act has played a key role in sowing the seeds of division. No political party has the courage to either openly support or publicly oppose the Act. If you are with the Act, you lose the support of upper caste voters; and if you are against it, the Dalits and the tribals will desert you. Traditionally, the BJP has been enjoying the loyalty of an overwhelming section of the upper caste voters. But today, perhaps, the BJP itself cannot be sure whether its upper-caste support base is intact. Never in the history of Madhya Pradesh did the upper caste persons form an independent political party.

The SAPAKS (Samanya Picchda Varg Alpasankhyak Adhikari Karmachari Sangh) has converted itself into a political party. The party is led by several former civil servants, belonging to the upper castes. The leaders of the newly-formed party are aware of the fact that upper caste people are angry because of the manner in which the BJP government overturned the judgment of the Supreme Court regarding the atrocities law.

This anger can be compared with what a section of the Hindus felt when Rajiv Gandhi enacted a law, virtually reversing the Supreme Court judgment in Shah Bano case. A majority of the Hindus dubbed it as a naked example of Muslim appeasement. The same feeling is writ large among upper caste Hindus over the BJP’s move to overturn the Supreme Court judgment this time. This act of the BJP has obviously resulted in the erosion of its traditional vote bank.

As far as the Dalits and the tribals are concerned, this time, they appear to be more vociferous. This is especially true of the tribals. A new organisation of tribals is posing a serious challenge both to the BJP and the Congress. This organisation is known as Jay Adivasi Yuva Shakti (JAYS). The organisation is holding a series of conferences and rallies in the tribal regions of the state. Dr. Hiralal Alawa, the president of the organisation, has announced that they would put up candidates in 80 tribal-dominated constituencies. He says that his slogan is “A tribal should be the next chief minister”. He says “No political party has cared for tribals. Now the time has come when we should ourselves take care of our interests and that will be possible when we have power.” Similar is the case with the Dalits, though their consolidation is not as powerful as that of the tribals. It is very difficult to say who will benefit by the consolidation of tribal and Dalit votes.

The BJP is also facing a challenge from Sadhus and Sants – the traditional supporters of the party. A delegation of Sadhus and Sants met the state Congress president and assured their support for the party, which is hoping to overthrow the 15-year-long BJP rule.

However, things are not very favourable for the Congress also. From the beginning, Congress gave the impression that it is not in the position to unseat the BJP on its own strength. It toyed with the idea of forming a Mahagathbandhan, consisting of BSP, SP etc. But this hope suffered a setback when the BSP supremo Mayawati struck a deal with Ajit Jogi in Chhattisgarh. Later, she announced the list of her party’s candidates for MP polls, thus completely ruling out any alliance with the Congress. Similarly Akhilesh Yadav has also stated that he cannot wait indefinitely for the Congress response.

Thus it is clear that the Congress has to fight the battle on its own strength. The Congress feels that the anti-incumbency factor will help it to a great extent. Corruption, misgovernance and failure to implement promises made by the chief minister will help the Congress to an extent but let us not forget that anti-incumbency factor was there in 2008 and 2013 elections also. But it did not work to the advantage of the Congress. Though, at present, the Congress, under the leadership of Kamal Nath, appears to be better organised, can this alone help the party overthrow the BJP? Thus given the substantial erosion in BJP’s traditional vote bank and the Congress trying to overthrow the BJP government solely on its own strength, the possibility of a hung Vidhan Sabha cannot be ruled out. (IPA Service)