The fortunes of the two arch-rivals, the Congress and the BJP, dwindled with every round of counting in the see-saw electoral battle in Chhattisgarh - one that kept everyone on the edge of their seats till the last ballot was taken account of. But Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh had a fair inkling of it after the first phase of polling itself.
In fact, as Singh told The Pioneer at his official residence here on the eve of his oath taking ceremony, "At one point, it looked we could lose. But we gathered all our resources and doubled our efforts."
"After the polling (for first phase) was over, we had a fair idea that we were not repeating our last time performance in the Naxal infested regions of Sarguja and Bastar. Congress had taken a lead over us in 18 Assembly constituencies that fall in this region," Singh admitted. BJP could win just six out of these 18 seats, compared to its previous tally of 16 seats.
Singh pointed out that it was here where the Congress erred and lowered its guard. The Congress felt that the war was already won, he said.
"But we got cautious. My team sat down together to put in place a strategy by which we could make up for losses incurred in jungles by gains in the plains. Things worked the way we had thought it should," Singh said.
Three victories in a row are enough for a Chief Minister to get carried away. But Singh is not a man who throws his weight around. For, he knows his low profile image helped him conquer the most difficult of three electoral battles he faced in this tribal hinterland.
The doctor CM - he is a practitioner of Ayurveda - always smiles. But he was worried when reports started pouring in after the first phase of elections that Congress has taken a lead.
The second BJP Chief Minister to have secured a hat-trick victory along with Shivraj Singh Chouhan this elections, Singh is quite relaxed now. He, however, admitted the amount of energy and time it required to secure the CM's seat is monumental.
After the first phase of poll, Singh would hop from one rally to another for more than 12 hours a day. There were days when he addressed eight or nine rallies. Back in Raipur by 10 pm, he would sit down with his confidants like Aman Singh (his secretary) to take stock of the situation. Every next day came a new challenge.
By the time the campaign was over, Singh had addressed more than 100 election rallies in 75 out of 90 assembly constituencies of Chhattisgarh. There were other BJP leaders, from the State and the capital, who also undertook a whirlwind tour of the state.
The result of the assembly election speaks for itself. Out of 37 sitting MlAs of the Congress, 27 lost the election. "It was like anti-incumbency for the sitting MlAs of Congress. Even a couple of our sitting MlAs also lost, but the other side was completely wiped out," Singh pointed out.
What went wrong in Naxal infested areasIJ Have voters there lost faith in the government, or was there a sympathy wave for the Congress, whose entire state leadership was eliminated in a Naxal attack in Darbha valley of Sukma district in MayIJ
"There were some shortcomings on our part too. We could've done better had we changed some more candidates there. And yes, there was a bit of emotive appeal for the Congress whose popular leaders like Mahendra Karma got killed in the ambush. But we can't blame only that incident. We did something wrong and we have taken lessons for future," Singh said.
The BJP Chief Minister isn't aiming high for himself. He wishes to continue in the 'state' to resolve the problems his people face and plans to continue with the pro-poor schemes besides launch some more.