BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday said that he had changed the definition of politics in Madhya Pradesh by providing a government that cared for the people, and said that he would be missed when he wasn’t around.
The chief minister referred to the constituents as his family and the women, his sisters. “For me, politics means serving the public and serving the public is for me, like worshipping God. I changed the definition of politics in Madhya Pradesh. Our poor brothers and sisters, farmer brothers and sisters, you have seen the rule of Congress for years. Tell me, was there ever such concern for the public? What used to happen…? I don’t run the government. I run a family. You all are my family,” Chouhan said at a meeting in Sehore district’s Ladkui area, which falls under the Budhni assembly seat that has voted for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in all assembly elections since 1985.
“You will not find such a brother. You will miss me when I am gone,” added Chouhan, who has represented the seat since 2006.
The chief minister’s emotional speech was interpreted by the Congress to allude to the BJP’s reluctance to name him as the party’s presumptive chief minister. For now, the BJP, which plans to focus on the government’s women-centric policies, has stressed that the election will be fought under the “collective leadership” of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and CM Chauhan.
Congress leaders interpreted Chouhan’s remarks to be an acknowledgement that his party had sidelined him.
“The truth has come out. Shivraj ji, now that you yourself have accepted that we will miss you a lot after you are gone… You will definitely be remembered for scams, corruption, false – never-fulfilling declarations, atrocities and other irregularities,” MP Congress Committee state media in-charge KK Mishra said.
Former chief minister Kamal Nath said the “people of the state will remember his (Shivraj Singh Chouhan) lies and failed promises.”
MP BJP spokesperson Hitesh Vajpayee said the Congress leaders were trying to give the chief minister’s emotional outreach to people a spin. “Shivraj ji was talking with his family members, and he got emotional that we won’t get a brother like him. This is true that nobody can be like Shivraj. But Congress leaders are getting happy after listening to this emotional speech and trying to give it a wrong spin. They don’t know that their dreams will not come true in this election,” said Hitesh Vajpayee, spokesperson, BJP.
Girija Shankar, a Bhopal-based political expert, said it was not uncommon for political parties and leaders to use their emotional appeal. “Chief minister Chouhan just played this emotional card because he knows people respect him,” he said.
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