By Neeraj Mishra

In the end, the voter understood Bhupesh Baghel’s duplicity better than us, observers, reporters and analysts. Baghel’s alms to the farmers in four instalments every year was aimed as a cover-up for his massive corruption and coercive ways. He ran an administration devoid of any human touch, principles or planning, rough shodding his way over every opposition within and outside based on a massive mandate obtained in 2018 which he appropriated as his own doing.

His discarded, embarrassed teammates grinned and bore it. Those who joined his gang (not government) prospered but have all been put to sleep by the electorate enraged at a pretentious “son of the soil” who allegedly wanted a cut in everything from Mahadev App, Excise sales, Mining to officer postings.

Baghel’s assumption that since he had fed the farmers an extra Rs 500, paid for their cow dung, and sweet-talked them about chhattisgariya pride, he had achieved an invincible position. His boasts of 75-plus seats reminded everyone of the last Congress chief minister Ajit Jogi, who had similar pretensions.

At least, Jogi worked hard and with a purpose. Incidentally, Baghel was a minister in his cabinet, foisted on him by a previous arrangement with Digvijaya Singh that his Madhya Pradesh cabinet members would be retained, always called Baghel a “ganda aadmi” (dirty man). This personal rivalry led Baghel to cancel the entire Jogi family’s ST certificate once in power, which in the end has left the beleaguered party with no national-level leadership among the tribals. He similarly chucked out his one-time benefactor Arvind Netam from the party.

Kakka means home breaker

In all family feuds over property, it’s usually the kakka (younger uncle) and his sons who ruin a family’s peace. Bhupesh, who coined the epithet Kakka for himself, and was fond of saying Kakka abhi Zinda hai, managed to drive a wedge in the Gandhi household itself.

He refused to abdicate when Rahul Gandhi asked him following his promise of 2.5 years to TS Singhdeo as CM. He instead clung on to Priyanka with unconcealed flattery who became his saviour. He even welcomed her with rose petals covering her one km path during the AICC session in Raipur in February earlier this year.

He was made in charge of Assam and Uttar Pradesh elections and Raman Singh alleged that he was Priyanka’s ATM. Many Congressmen close to Baghel even joke that he pays Priyanka’s EMI. Jokes apart, Baghel did manage to annoy Rahul and Sonia with his Priyanka shield.

ED cases in Chhattisgarh

Two IAS officers, who joined the Baghel gang, are in jail. His closest aides are incarcerated and several more have been identified by the BJP and are likely to face the music in coming days. The Congress lost 17 SC/ST seats paving the way for the BJP to grab them back. The BJP which had only 3 seats out of 39 reserved seats, now has 21. This is where the battle was lost.

Baghel’s running battle with tribal PCC president Markam and foisting of his dummy Deepak Baij just ahead of elections ended in loss for both tribal leaders.

OBC hoax

Baghel pulled wool over the eyes of the Gandhis by projecting himself as an OBC leader. The learned Gandhi siblings, of course, don’t know what or who is an OBC or whether it can be treated as a block. The BJP called his hoax of Kurmi leadership and separated the Sahus from the OBC stack.

Result, a labourer from Bemetara, Ishwar Sahu was given the ticket in Saja seat and he defeated the loathsome figure of Ravindra Chaubey, who was Baghel’s closest ally along with Mohammad Akbar in the cabinet. Both lost by margins of over 40,000 votes. It only means the voter was watching and registering everything.

Opportunity

Baghel was a leader from Durg district who clung onto bigger names like Vasudev Chandrakar and Khubchand Baghel because of his Kurmi caste. He was given the transport portfolio by Digvijaya Singh in undivided Madhya Pradesh but the department was run directly by him. He got his opportunity in Chhattisgarh because of the tragic incident of Jeeram Valley when the Naxalites shot down the entire senior leadership of Congress, from VC Shukla, Nand Kumar Patel to Mahendra Karma. Baghel and TS Singhdeo prospered because the last of the senior leaders like Satyanarain Sharma and Charandas Mahant had been sidelined by Ajit Jogi. Baghel was smart enough to then push Jogi out of the Congress once he became PCC president in 2014.

Government

In saddle, Baghel created a fear psychosis among bureaucrats. His first target as CM were Principal Secretary to Raman Singh, Aman Singh and his EOW chief Mukesh Gupta. He suspended and then terminated Gupta, filed cases against Aman Singh and Raman Singh’s son Abhishek Singh. Later, he posted pliable officers in EOW to threaten and coerce senior bureaucrats.

One of them was ADGP GP Singh, who was raided by his own EOW department, and later forced to retire. Journalists were threatened and raided, arrested and even their houses bulldozed. One of them, an ex-Aaj Tak reporter, is now behind bars with an NDPS case slapped on him because he dared to question bureaucrats close to Baghel.

If anything, Baghel’s five-year reign has proved that one needs good people and officers to run a government. He had none. Not even one. There were two people from the districts, one ex-cartoonist from a local newspaper accused of making and distributing sex CDs, one pretentious socialist-turned Congressi local editor crowned by an SDM level officer with a motor mouth.

She is now cooling her heels in ED custody but when she ran the show, abusing IAS officers was her favourite pastime. This priceless team put together a policy called-Narwa, Ghurwa, Badi—which they thought was a brilliant idea to change the lives of villagers. It didn’t change anything but culminated in the only creditable policy of Baghel sarkar in Rajiv Gandhi bonus of Rs 500 per quintal for the farmers.

But the lot enjoyed unbridled power with novice district collectors dancing to their tune and everyone from Patwari and Hawaldar to Chief Secretary to DGP collecting and paying cuts. At least that’s what the ED teams found. Those cases are now likely to gain speed.

The Dhebar chapter

The Dhebar family from Raipur became his strongest ally. It is believed they also became his book keepers. He managed to install Aijaz Dhebar as Mayor of Raipur through clever manipulation of indirect voting. In a direct vote, Aijaz, a one-time NSUI president, who would possibly have remained a corporator from a Muslim locality all his life.

This emboldened the Dhebars and they are accused of swindling the state exchequer of Rs 2000 crore by the ED. Aijaz’s elder brother was incarcerated for a year and is now out on bail but the ED cases are still on. The Congress’ wipe-out from all seven seats in Raipur district is credited to Dhebars uncontrolled loot of public funds and land. Again the electorate was watching and registering everything.

Women’s vote

If one were to pin Baghel on one single reason for the Congress’ devastating loss, it would be how he cheated women voters. It’s not the promises or enticement by the BJP, it’s the fraud perpetrated on them by Baghel that riled women voters, who outnumber male voters overall in the state.

What was the fraud? Baghel and Singhdeo had promised Prohibition as soon as they came to power but instead the whole excise department became a milch cow. The excise revenue rose from Rs 4000 crore in 2018 to Rs 8000 crore in 2022-23. An equal amount is believed to have been made illegally and shared by many every year.

It had become so bad that during the Covid years, liquor was delivered to the doorstep by government vehicles. An entire generation has been ruined by this senselessness and women folk noted this with venom in their heart against the perpetrators as they watched their homes and men folk going to waste.

Scams

There is an endless list of scams from the latest Mahadev App betting racket to coal mafia, sand mafia, mining mafia, transport mafia, PSC appointments scam, teachers recruitment scam, police promotion scam to transfer and posting deals.

All this could have been taken up by the BJP on a warfooting during elections and there were questions raised over their leaders’ intentions when it was not done over the past five years. But eventually they relied on the undercurrent of anger among women and the duplicitous nature of Bhupesh ka Bharosa to see them through.