NEW DELHI: After BJP replaced Biplab Kumar Deb with Manik Saha as chief minister of Tripura last week, suspense looms large over the continuance of Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh CMs Jai Ram Thakur and Shivraj Singh Chouhan respectively.
As many as 11 states will face elections before the 2024 Lok Sabha election. While Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat will go to polls later this year, elections will be held in Karnataka, Tripura, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland next year.
Of these 11 states, BJP is governing Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tripura and Madhya Pradesh. BJP has changed CMs in Gujarat, Karnataka and Tripura.
Vijay Rupani was replaced with Bhupendra Patel in Gujarat in September last year. BS Yediyurappa was replaced with Basavaraj Bommai in July last year while Biplab Deb was replaced with Manik Saha last week.
Jai Ram Thakur continues as chief minister of Himachal Pradesh ever since the last election results were declared in December 2017.
Similarly, Shivraj Singh Chouhan is seated as Madhya Pradesh CM ever since the Kamal Nath government of Congress was toppled in March 2020.
It remains to be seen whether Thakur and Chouhan continue as CM or they are also replaced as in the case of some other BJP CMs.
In the last five-six years, BJP has experimented with both - by not changing some CMs and by replacing the others.
Notably, BJP has won wherever it has changed CM. For instance, it replaced Anandiben Patel with Vijay Rupani as Gujarat CM in August 2016, and went on to win the 2017 assembly election.
Similarly, it changed not one but two CMs in Uttarakhand last year and won this year’s state polls. It first replaced Trivendra Singh Rawat with Tirath Singh Rawat in March 2021 and then installed Pushkar Singh Dhami in place of Tirath in July 2021.
But BJP has got a mixed result by not changing CMs - it has won elections in some states while it has also lost in others.
BJP did not change CM but won
BJP retained N Biren Singh in Manipur, Pramod Sawant in Goa, Sarbananda Sonowal in Assam and Yogi Adityanath in Uttar Pradesh. All these four CMs completed their full tenure and BJP won the assembly election in the respective states - in Assam last year while in Manipur, Goa and Uttar Pradesh earlier this year.
BJP did not change CM and lost
However, BJP has also lost elections or could not win majority in as many as six states.
It continued with Shivraj Singh Chouhan and lost the 2018 Madhya Pradesh assembly election.
Similarly, Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan and Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh could not steer the party to victory in 2018 assembly elections in their respective states.
Raghubar Das in Jharkhand failed to lead BJP to victory in the 2019 assembly election.
ML Khattar remained as Haryana CM for a full tenure in his previous stint. BJP failed to touch the majority mark though it emerged as the single-largest party in a hung assembly. It succeeded in forming government by forging a post-poll alliance with Dushyant Chautala-led Jannayak Janta Party (JJP) in the 2019 assembly election.
Devendra Fadnavis was the Maharashtra CM for a full term from 2014. BJP was the single largest party but did not win a majority in the 2019 state polls. Its oldest ally, Shiv Sena, stitched a post-poll alliance with Sharad Pawar-led NCP and Congress to form Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in the state.
BJP has both the models to follow in Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. It is likely to continue with Jai Ram Thakur in Himachal Pradesh as election in the state is not even six months away. But the party has sufficient time to make a change in Madhya Pradesh.
