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Society
Sushma
Swaraj Becomes Vidisha's 'Daughter'
by Shuriah Niazi
One of the most prominent
leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Sushma Swaraj is the face
of the party in Madhya Pradesh for the Lok Sabha polls.
As she moves from village to village addressing rallies, asking for
votes and 'ashirwad' (blessings), women gather in large numbers to catch
a glimpse of her. "I am here because the prime ministerial candidate L.K.
Advani asked me to contest the Lok Sabha election. Chief Minister
Shivraj Singh Chauhan invited me to contest from Madhya Pradesh and I am
here with you," were the words Swaraj used when she first began her
campaign from Vidisha. This seat, incidentally, has always been
considered a safe bet for the BJP. Former prime minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee had stood from Vidisha in 1991, emerging victorious, and the
present chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, had won
from this seat no less than five times.
But Sushma Swaraj's election style presents a marked contrast to her
male predecessors. For instance, this time she even tied 'raksha sutras'
(safety threads) around the wrists of party workers and made them
promise her a victory. "It's a bond with the people of the constituency
as the chief minister himself has an emotional relationship with the
voters," she maintains.
Eloquence has always come easy to this lawyer-turned-politician, who was
incidentally the first woman law-maker to receive the outstanding
Parliamentarian Award. In Vidisha she is at pains to dispel any thoughts
of her being an outsider to Madhya Pradesh, claiming that the state is
her very own, one that will deliver her political future. "People
shouldn't be surprised at my decision to contest from here. My
connection with Madhya Pradesh is not new. I've been representing the
state in the Rajya Sabha," Swaraj explains at her election meetings. But
it is also a fact that in the course of her long political career,
Swaraj had contested not just from her home state of Haryana, but had
been the chief minister of Delhi and had taken on Congress leader Sonia
Gandhi at Bellary during the 1999 elections.
Swaraj was initially keen to contest from Bhopal but gracefully stepped
aside to accommodate a party colleague. "Kailashji (former Chief
Minister, Kailash Joshi) is a senior leader. He chose the Bhopal seat.
Therefore, I decided to go to Vidisha. However, I don't regret it," she
never fails to point out, evoking the cultural resonance of Vidisha. The
region, located in the eastern part of the fertile Malwa area, is of
great antiquity and finds mention in epics like the �Mahabharata� as
also in Kalidas's �Meghdoot�.
Swaraj is an indefatigable campaigner and has addressed at least 100
poll meetings in the run up to this election. She has also accompanied
Chief Minister Chauhan in almost all the rallies that were staged as
part of his 'Nyay-Yatra' (march for justice) in her constituency. The
BJP had launched a four-day 'Nyay Yatra' in all the Lok Sabha seats of
Madhya Pradesh with the purpose of "exposing" the Congress-led United
Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's alleged discrimination against
BJP-ruled states.
While addressing a rally during a 'Nyay-Yatra' at Vidisha, Swaraj pulled
no punches when she spoke about the discriminatory treatment of the
Centre against the state. "You cannot prevent natural calamities. But
for man-made problems, the people have every right to settle scores with
the discriminator," she said.
Swaraj has also been liberal with her promises, including railway lines.
"I know the people of the area need a direct train line from Budhni to
Indore and for Sagar and Bhopal. I assure them that this demand will be
fulfilled soon by the Centre," she vowed.
All this has gone down well with voters here. Often the crowds who turn
up to hear her, spontaneously burst out in response, "Sushmaji, tum
sangarsh karo, hum tumhare sath hai (Sushmaji, you carry on with your
struggle. We will support you)."
Says Akhilesh Shrivastava, a local Vidisha resident who is quite clearly
bowled over by Swaraj, "She is a national-level leader. Her victory is
certain. People feel she will work for the region if she becomes MP."
Vijaya Tiwari, a local housewife in her fifties, agrees. She is happy
that a national-level woman leader is contesting from her city and
explains that since Vidisha is a BJP stronghold, Swaraj will have no
difficulty winning the seat.
However, not everyone agrees. Namit Kumar, a college student, puts it
this way, "Leaders from outside only come here to use us. In 1991,
Vajpayee had contested from Vidisha and Lucknow. After he won both
seats, he chose to keep Lucknow and resign from Vidisha."
Interestingly, according to party insiders, Swaraj's heightened activity
in the state - she is in charge of her party's campaign in Madhya
Pradesh and Chhattisgarh - has made Chief Minister Chauhan insecure. But
Swaraj, ever the diplomat, has publicly clarified she has no intentions
of occupying the chief ministerial chair and is only working for the
party's victory at the national level. Early in her campaign, Swaraj had
indiscreetly voiced doubts about her party's prospects of coming to
power at the Centre. Having faced a great deal of flak for that
observation, she now makes sure to repeat at every meeting that she is
confident "the BJP will emerge as the biggest party in the country and
that Advani will become the Prime Minister."
Swaraj also insists that the BJP will bag 26 of the 29 seats in the
state. While political analysts may doubt this projection, they concede
that Sushma Swaraj - especially after the rejection of her Congress
opponent's nomination papers - has Vidisha firmly locked up in her
handbag.
April 19, 2009
By arrangement with
WFS
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