Modi tries to make direct connect with Madhya Pradesh voters

Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote a letter to the people of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh in an attempt to make a direct connect with voters by saying that their vote will work as “direct support” to him at the Centre.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday wrote a letter to the people of poll-bound Madhya Pradesh in an attempt to make a direct connect with voters by saying that their vote will work as “direct support” to him at the Centre.

The letter was made public by BJP State unit president and parliamentarian V.D. Sharma at a press conference in Bhopal by saying “chitthi aayi hai [a letter has arrived]”.

The letter is in line with the BJP’s campaign slogan ‘Modi Ke Mann Me Basey M.P., M.P. Ke Mann Me Modi [M.P. lies in Modi’s heart, Modi in M.P.’s heart]’, which was launched in August and has since established the party’s strategy that this time it is going to polls with Mr. Modi’s face alone, unlike the previous three Assembly polls where it had openly declared the incumbent Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan as its candidate for the top post. However, in the last 2018 elections, the party lost to the Congress and could only manage 109 seats.

This time around, the BJP’s changed strategy has been visible throughout the campaign, in speeches of its leaders, in their responses to the question over the Chief Minister’s face, in the 230 hi-tech campaign vehicles that were launched on Thursday by Mr. Chouhan and Mr. Sharma, and on hoardings that can be seen on all roads and junctions of Bhopal.

Under the tagline ‘M.P. Ke Mann Me Modi’, the hoardings have Mr. Modi in focus with a large picture while Mr. Chouhan’s picture now among 10 other party leaders, including national president J.P. Nadda, Mr. Sharma, Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia. Union Ministers Narendra Singh Tomar, Prahlad Singh Patel and Faggan Singh Kulaste, and BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, who have been fielded in the Assembly polls and seen among Chief Minister post probables, also feature in the same line.

Mr. Chouhan himself had kept the speculations running for a while with his emotional speeches and attempts to strike an emotional chord with the voters. In one speech in his traditional constituency Budhni earlier this month, he had said, “Sisters, you will not find a brother like this. When I leave, you will miss me.” He has now been fielded from his seat.

Even as BJP leaders say that the party is going ahead with collective leadership this time, speculations have been abuzz in the State about a possible change of face even if the BJP retains power in the State it has ruled for over 18 years in the past 20 years, with Mr. Chouhan as its Chief Minister for more than 16 years.