Resentment brewed among the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislators who have questioned the credentials of the survey pin-pointing their weaknesses in the constituencies.
Sensing the angst, however, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has assured the party legislators that he wants every legislator to get party ticket for the coming assembly elections. “The survey gives an opportunity to the legislators to address the weaknesses and develop strength in the areas where they are vulnerable to get party ticket,” he told the legislators.
The MlAs, however, dismiss this as a ruse. Many of them believe that the survey is just an attempt by the party to deny tickets in coming elections.On condition of anonymity, a senior legislator noted, “I am four-term MlA from the area and now the Chief Minister has got a survey to point out that I am weak in and will lose the seat if something is not done about it.”
“The truth, however, is that my core strength lies in the same localities that have been pinpointed as my weak points. But the party is not ready to listen,” he said with perceptible anguish.
Another legislator said that he has been asked to focus on the localities where the survey marks him as weak. “But those localities have been traditionally strongholds of Congress. Why should I waste my energies there instead of strengthening myself in my core areas,” he pointed out adding that the survey ignores the fact that ground realities vary in different areas.
Another disgruntled legislator said, “I have been in politics for more than 30 years. I know how to win elections and that is why I could win election even when there was a pro-Congress wave after assassinations of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi.”The resenting legislators further point out that even in those areas where they have been marked as weak could have been addressed much earlier,“But nobody listened to us, neither the Chief Minister nor the party. And now suddenly we are being put under the dock,” they rue.