Is Shivraj Singh Chouhan losing grip over the State politicsIJ The audio clip conversation purportedly between Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and BJP worker Rajesh Choudhary shows Chouhan's desperation not only to win Garoth bypoll, but keep himself on the top.Since the rise of Narendra Modi, Chouhan has become vulnerable and the recent induction of Kailash Vijayvargiya as BJP’s national General Secretary has made his position a bit more unstable.The audio clip implicating Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan that surfaced two days ago, indicates that Chouhan has started facing challenges from within the party.It also suggests that the coming days are not cozy for Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who had been unbeatable for over a decade in the politics of Madhya Pradesh.
After powerful Minister of Shivraj Cabinet Kailash Vijayvargiya has been elevated to the post of General Secretary in national BJP, it has certainly created a new power centre at the Centre. Vijayvargiya has time and again claimed that he is simply a party worker, but the present situation that he has attained new heights by being close to the High Command, cannot be ruled out.Political observers feel that this is for the first time in the BJP that only a simply party worker like Rajesh Choudhary from Mandsaur district mustered courage to stand against Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. The only reason behind Choudhary getting annoyed with Chouhan was that he was the strong claimant for the ticket in Garoth by-poll, but he was denied.
In past ten years, after Chouhan became Chief Minister of the State, there had been seldom occasions when any leader could stand against him. There had been two instances when Shivraj faced such situations; the one was when Raghunandan Sharma had issued statement against him saying that Shivraj was ‘Ghoshanaveer’. later, Sharma was shown doors and at present, he is in Delhi and far away from State politics.
Similar was the situation, when Minister Vijay Shah had a slip of tongue regarding Shivraj’s wife. Then Shah had to tender resignation from the post and it took around a year for him to regain confidence of Shivraj.Having witnessed these two instances, nobody in the BJP, whether in the State or Centre, made any effort to take action against Shivraj Singh Chouhan.The only reason behind the situation was that Shivraj remained the strongman of the party in Madhya Pradesh and in his leadership the party won almost all the elections. Probably, this was the reason that Nandkumar Singh Chouhan, whom Shivraj liked was made State president of the party.However, the coming days are full of challenges for Shivraj as organizational elections would be held later this year. Then too, he would like his man to be the next president, while other power centres in the State would think otherwise.