Will BJP replace Chouhan, Khattar to secure winning ways in Madhya Pradesh, Haryana?

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party is seemingly caught in a dilemma over the replacement of Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Manohar Lal Khattar as Chief Ministers in Madhya Pradesh and Haryana respectively ahead of the crucial Assembly and Lok Sabha polls.

Party sources stated that a decision on Chouhan and Khattar’s future may be taken soon. The removal option needs to be carefully examined so as not to fuel any rebellion in these crucial states, which could end up hurting the BJP instead of removing anti-incumbency against the saffron front, sources added.

The BJP is desperately trying to avoid a replication of its recent defeat in Himachal Pradesh in the Assembly polls in these states scheduled for 2023 and 2024.

While Madhya Pradesh is scheduled to go for polls later this year, Haryana Assembly polls are likely months after the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

As part of this plan, a similar change at the helm has already been implemented in Karnataka -- which goes to polls in a few weeks -- where BS Yediyurappa was replaced by Basavaraj Bommai as the Chief Minister to tackle the anti-incumbency prevailing against the BJP.

The party has been successful in winning the Assembly polls wherever it has replaced the sitting Chief Minister like in the case of Uttarakhand, Gujarat. The BJP feels that this replacement at the top helps enable it to negate the prevailing anti-incumbency against the party. This move has paid dividends to the party and it has even been successful in Uttarakhand which had a tradition of rotation of governments between BJP and Congress, sources pointed out.

“Changing chief ministers of Gujarat and Uttarakhand paid huge dividends for the BJP as the party stormed back to power in these two states with a better majority,” sources pointed out.

While the saffron unit has lost Legislative Assembly polls wherever it chose to repeat the sitting Chief Minister as it happened in Himachal Pradesh and Jharkhand where the party decided to stick with the sitting CMs Jai Ram Thakur and Raghubar Das respectively.

With 29 Lok Sabha seats, Madhya Pradesh has been playing a crucial role in the formation of a Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre.

The BJP had secured 27 seats in the 2014 general election while it had bettered its performance and secured 28 seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a third term in 2024, the BJP feels that if it is able to win the forthcoming Assembly polls in Madhya Pradesh its chances of retaining its tally of Lok Sabha seats from the state would be much better.

In 2018, the BJP was only able to secure 109 out of 230 seats in the MP Assembly, paving way for the formation of a Kamalnath-led government after Congress was able to win 114 seats. Though the BJP was later able to engineer a split in the Congress and come back to power under the leadership of Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Meanwhile, Haryana Chief Minister Khattar has been facing the heat from several communities including Jats, Ahirs and Brahmins who have been alleging that their respective communities have been denied proper representation. This could prove to be detrimental to the BJP's cause in next year's Lok Sabha polls, hence the rethink about Khattar's position.

While the BJP had secured seven out of the ten Lok Sabha seats in 2014, the state had given all 10 seats to the saffron unit in 2019. Sources stated that the BJP hopes to repeat its 100 per cent strike rate in Haryana in 2024 by resolving this leadership crisis well in time and the saffron unit can ill afford to lose the crucial state in 2024.

Currently, the 90-member Haryana Legislative Assembly has BJP 40, Jannayak Janta Party 10 and Congress 31 members. The other seats are held by Indian National Lok Dal and Independents.

The BJP secured 49 seats in the 2014 Haryana Assembly polls, forming its first-ever government in the state under Khattar. However, BJP had to ally with the JJP in 2019 after its seats fell short of the halfway mark due to rebel candidates.