Former Madhya Pradesh CM and BJP candidate Shivraj Singh Chouhan during his campaign for Lok Sabha elections, at Ganj Basoda in Vidisha district
“Desh ke liye Modiji aache hain, but apnaa mama bhi to buraa nahi hain, naa bhai,” (for the country Modiji is good but your uncle is also not bad), former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan remarks as the crowd nods in agreement.
Fighting his sixth Lok Sabha election, Madhya Pradesh’s longest-serving chief minister is projecting a picture that has always been his calling card — the lovable, friendly “mama”.
All along his campaign journey, which passed through some of the remote hamlets of the large constituency of Vidisha, Chouhan tries to remind the electorate of the work done by him as chief minister.
His famous “Ladli Behna Yojana”, which several experts have counted as being one of the factors that brought the BJP back to power in the 2023 state polls, finds repeated mention.
Launched on March 5, 2023, just months ahead of the Karnataka elections, which the ruling BJP lost comprehensively to the Congress, the Mukyamantri Ladli Behna Yojana promised a handout of Rs 1,000 per month to all eligible women in the state without any counter-guarantee.
The scheme was an instant hit and within just a few months over 13 million women enrolled in the scheme (the number came down to 12.8 million recently) and the first tranche starting in June last year.
Later the Madhya Pradesh government raised the amount to Rs 1,250 per month and has promised to raise it to Rs 3,000 in tranches over a period of time.
“Empowerment of women is my life mission and work that I have done all my life and will do now from Delhi,” Chouhan tells a group of women who gathered under a tree shade to hear him. They gift him a bag full of coins collected to fight the election. “This is worth even lakhs of rupees for me,” Shivraj says as he bows to seek their blessings.
The Vidisha parliamentary constituency, comprising of eight Vidhan Sabha seats, has been a BJP stronghold for long.
Chouhan himself has been a five-term member of Parliament from the same seat and had once won a Vidhan Sabha election as well from the same district.
In the state polls in December, the BJP won seven of the eight seats with just one going to the Congress. His rival is Pratap Bhanu Sharma, who was a two-time member of the Legislative Assembly in the 1980s.
Instead of doing big rallies and roadshows, his team says that the former chief minister is concentrating on doing small street-corner meetings.
“Main jab mukyamatri thaa tab maine appke liye ‘Ladli behna Yojana’ layaa, aab mujhe aap logon ko ‘Lakhpati behna’ banana aur ittna saksham banana hai ki har mahila mahine main kam se kam Rs 10,000 kamaa sake (when I was chief minister we launched the Ladli Behna scheme and now I am to make you lakhpati behna by empowering you to earn at least Rs 10,000 per month),” Shivraj says.
The Lakhpati Behna or Lakhpati Didi is a central government scheme that focuses on providing training to women in self-help groups, enabling them to generate a sustainable annual income of at least Rs 1 lakh.
Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the interim Budget scaled up the target to create Lakhpati Didis from 20 million to 30 million.
First Published: May 03 2024 | 12:16 AM IST
