When sycophancy decided 'media hype' around Bharat Jodo Yatra and Congress claimed 'bigger than shoes'; the balloon finally is pricked

 The impact of Rahul Gandhi's Bharat Jodo Yatra was almost negligible in Madhya Pradesh, where the BJP could retain their two-decades old hold.

The Yatra had traversed 21 Assembly segments in the districts of Burhanpur, Indore, Agar Malwa and Ujjain between November 20 and December 4 2022, the results - the Congress retained 3 seats – Tarana, Bhikangaon and Susner.

Notably in 2018, the Congress had won seven of the 21 seats in these districts and besides the three seats, the grand old party could only win additional - Mahidpur.

In the MP leg of the Yatra, even Priyanka Gandhi Vadra had joined the march. However, the BJP emerged victorious in all segments of the Indore district as well despite the Yatra traversing through this region also. 

 

In contrast, the BJP leaders had lot to talk and display about their works in Madhya Pradesh - once labeled as BIMARU.  The Shivraj Singh Chouhan government  worked in parallel to solve the irrigation and water availability problems to risk-proof farmers from the vagaries of monsoons.

 While the Digvijaya Singh government had launched the 'paani roko' programme in 2002-03 after two successive monsoons failed, the initiative was neither scaled nor funded and as a consequence, local water bodies and traditional storage structures had been rendered unusable by 2006-07.

Chouhan started clearing the backlog of various stalled irrigation programmes and promoting water harvesting and conservation at the micro level.

By 2017, Madhya Pradesh could boast of almost 3 million hectares of irrigated land, a three and a half times increase over the previous eight years. 

The success of the water management programmes of the state was also acknowledged widely. Dewas model — named after the water conservation programme launched in the Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh — epitomised the success story with farmers from Maharashtra and Rajasthan travelling to Dewas to understand micro-irrigation techniques better. 

In a relatively short span of time, Chouhan emerged as a credible and proven performer acceptable to most people who were still haunted by memories of the bad roads, long power cuts and poor water supply during Congress chief minister Digvijaya Singh's period.

Madhya Pradesh No Longer A BIMARU State, and this was largely due to Chouhan's Agriculture Revolution leading to 'transforming' the state's agriculture sector.

In his first term, he began by focusing on each deficiency area at the input side of Madhya Pradesh's agricultural economy. At the macro level, Chouhan established an 'Agriculture Cabinet', focusing especially on the financials of the sector. This governance structure fixed individual ministerial and bureaucratic responsibility for various initiatives launched by the state government over the next few years. 

The Chouhan government also focused on the financing of the cultivation process. New schemes were launched to provide interest-free loans with liberal principal payment terms for farmers.  By 2017, Madhya Pradesh could boast of almost 3 million hectares of irrigated land, a three and a half times increase over the previous eight years. 

The success of the water management programmes of the state was also acknowledged widely. Dewas model — named after the water conservation programme launched in the Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh — epitomised the success story with farmers from Maharashtra and Rajasthan travelling to Dewas to understand micro-irrigation techniques better, the BJP sources say.

After Karnataka poll results, the Bharat Jodo Yatra and Rahul Gandhi were given all the credit.

The Congress had won 15 of the 20 Assembly segments it had traversed through Karnataka. 

However, the results declared on Dec 3 indicate the diminishing returns of the Yatra in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

The Rahul Gandhi-led march did not touch the other two poll-bound states of Chhattisgarh and Mizoram.

The impact of the Yatra was most seen in Telangana, albeit only in rural areas. Between October 23 and November 7, 2022, Rahul Gandhi crossed the state, with a large part of his route falling in the erstwhile Mahbubnagar district and covering essentially 14 Assembly constituencies. The Congress managed to wrest 12 of these from the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS), which managed to hold on to only Gadwal and Alampur.

 

But in Telangana too, the Yatra later proceeded to the urban areas of Hyderabad, but here it had no impact as the BRS managed to win 8 of the 15 seats on offer while the AIMIM retained its 7 traditional seats.  

Between December 4 and 21, 2022, the Yatra was in Rajasthan. It traversed 12 Assembly segments, falling in the districts of Jhalawar, Dausa, Sawai Madhopur and Alwar districts. 

The Yatra itself was marked by constant one-upmanship between the camps of Ashok Gehlot.

In these areas, the Congress wrested three seats – Khanpur, Keshoraipatan and Mundawar – from the BJP while it held on to 6. The party also lost 2 seats – Sawai Madhopur and Khandar – to the BJP, while the BJP retained the Vasundhara Raje stronghold of Jhalrapatan.

This is the area where the Gujjar anger with the Congress over the sidelining of Sachin Pilot was the most evident, and clearly prevailed over any goodwill the Bharat Jodo Yatra might have generated. 

The Congress had managed to win 6 seats here in 2018 while an Independent won and joined the Congress, taking its tally to 7.