 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. I am Poranjoy Guha Thakurtha and we are going to discuss politics and economics in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh. With me here in the studio, I am very happy to have the leader of the opposition of the legislative assembly of Chhattisgarh, Ribhuvaneshwar Sharan Singdeo. Thank you Singdeoji for coming here. Now, the first three years after Chhattisgarh became a state on the 1st of November 2000, when we had a congress chief minister, it's been a Bharti Janta Party government with Dr. Ramansingh as the chief minister continuously from 2003 and till the next assembly elections take place towards the end of 2018. They scheduled to take place in November, December 2018. So what is the strategy of the congress to electorally defeat the Bharti Janta Party government under Dr. Ramansingh? You've seen in terms of vote share, I found something very interesting between 2003 and 2013. The BJP's vote share has varied from 39% to 41%. It's gone up by one percentage point. The congress' vote share has actually gone up from 36.7% to 38% to 40% plus. But interestingly, the number of seats in the legislative assembly have hardly gone up by one MLA each year. So I'd like you to spend a few minutes in explaining what is the strategy of your party to attempt to electorally defeat the Bharti Janta Party in Chhattisgarh. Puranjyoiji Chhattisgarh has traditionally been a congress stronghold. When it was part of Madhupadesh, the governments in Madhupadesh were formed on many occasions by the presence of congress representatives from the Chhattisgarh region. And that is why we had the congress government in 2000 when the state was formed because the majority of the MLA's were with the congress. But when the elections took place in 2003, the Bharti Janta Party was formed after that? Our first chief minister must have been in a position where there was a need for development. There was a need for better work in the first stage of the election. But there were other social situations like this. There was a need for improvement in the state of Naksalwad. The congress was affected by this shock. And we got 37 seats in the congress. There was no such thing as a washout. 37 seats were given by the congress. But we were away from the majority. So while we had the opportunity to be part of the government, we were unable to get people's trust. As the work could be done, it could be a factor of the Jogi ji. We will talk about the Jogi ji. There was a major factor in between 2000 and 2003. While living in Madhya Pradesh, Naksalwad was a minister. And after being in Naksalwad for 2600 years, Naksalwad was in a different region. Naksalwad was seen openly. It was affected. It started to happen. And I think that this was the main issue. We will talk about this topic in detail. But my question was for you. What is the strategy in the coming 6-8 months? The strategy is to get to the people. Congress has been seen to not be able to get its agenda cross or its view cross. In today's world of the social media, the presence of the media, visual as well as print media. First, it used to work with poster pamphlets. It used to work with language. As the new situation and technology has developed, Congress has been following people. Especially in public and social media. So, one thing is to get to the people. For this, the Congress Party took the decision to work in this depth for the first time. That the Congress had to do a trained cadre. The Congress was also called a mass-based party. The leaders of the Congress. As a nation, a trained cadre helps the party. Do you have such a cadre? No. The Communist Party did not have the same thing as the Congress. The BJP did not have the same thing as the Congress Party. The BSP did not have the same thing as the Congress Party. I am interrupting you. You have mentioned the name of the Bhojan Samaj Party. In Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath Ji said that it is impossible to have a connection with your party. So, in Chhattisgarh, in the Assembly, we saw the Bhojan Samaj Party getting 4.45% of the seats, then 6.11% and then 4.3%. If you meet each other, then you easily... So, the arithmetic says that the coalition will defeat the BJP. Arithmetic is very clear. If you add the 45 lakh votes with the BSP gets, Congress has been behind the BJP in the last election by 1 lakh 6,000 votes. So, if you add 4, 4 or 5 lakh votes, you are obviously way ahead of them. So, is there a possibility of understanding? There is a possibility of understanding in politics. For now, Congress has... In the first few days, in Bengaluru, Suniya Ji and Mahavati Ji were together in one manch. We cannot deny the possibility. But our Chief Minister had recently announced in front of the media that Congress is preparing to fight 90-90 seats. What happens in the coming days is a different thing. But we, the 90-90 seats of Congress, do what we do. We have asked ourselves what we are doing. We are doing training programmes in polling booths. We are doing training programmes in the experience of polling booths. Let's talk a little bit about Ajit Jogiji. You know, he was the first Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh. We know that Ajit Jogiji was... He was a former government civil servant, like your father, Shri M. S. Singh there, who was also the former Chief Secretary of Madhya Pradesh. But Jogiji, his relationship with the Congress of late has been very, very strained. Let's go step by step. December 2013, okay, that's the time after the defeat of the Congress, Jogiji was accused of bribing Bharatanjanta Party MLA's in a sting operation. He was suspended from the Congress Party. Then there was a registration of a case by the Central Bureau of Investigation. Then the ASG, the then ASG, the Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam said he could not be prosecuted. We claim that the Congress has saved Ajit Jogiji with the help of the CBI. Fast forward, June 2017, Ajit Jogi and his son Amit Jogi are arrested. Why? Because they are accused in a murder case of the NCP, National Congress Party Treasurer Ramavatar Jaggi. This is June 2013. This happened four years earlier, but the case surfaced. Then what happened? Again, Jogiji is accused of helping or sabotaging the Congress in Antagar. And he is expelled from the Congress Party. In June 2016, he forms his own party, the Chhattisgarh Janta Congress. Now he is unwell. Rahul Gandhi has gone and visited him. This relationship, this love-hate relationship with Ajit Jogi, who has it helped? Has it helped Jogiji? He is supposed to be the spoiler. Please elaborate. I would not see it as a love-hate relationship, but it was a being together where there were conflicts of interest, there were conflicts of how things should be done. There were conflicts about who would be taken along by him. While being the Chief Minister, it was his responsibility to take everyone along. And Sonia Gandhi, who gave him the chance to become the Chief Minister in the year 2036, was in those circumstances when only two MLA were with him. The MLA of Congress, which was the daughter-in-law of the Congress, was backing Mr. Mahendra Karma for about 34 MLA. There were some MLA's with Vidya Charanji, some MLA's with Shyama Charanji. The MLA of Congress's disease, factionalism, that you are supporting individual leaders and not the party. Because the group of MLA's is asked first about its choice. And after those feedbacks are taken, like in any other party, then the senior party leadership or the high command, as we tend to call it, they take the final call. So when it was left to the MLA's to sort out or think about who they would like to support, there was a large group of MLA's, 34, who were backing Mahendra Karma. And at that time, the call was to give the first opportunity in Chhattisgarh to a tribal. Not to a tribal, MLA necessarily, but to a tribal. And eventually, I was part of a group which met Sonia Gandhiji. And we suggested to her that we would like the first Chief Minister to be from the tribal community. If it is from the MLA's, we would like, we are proposing Mahendra Karmaji's name. And if it is to be from outside, we are suggesting Mr. Ajiz Jogi's name. So a group of senior MLA's, and I was part of it though, then I was not an MLA. We had gone and we ourselves had given this suggestion to Sonia Ji. For his calibre, for his intelligence, being an IS officer like you mentioned and other reasons, it was thought that let us give a chance to a tribal who has risen from the ranks, who has gone into service on merit, who has been an engineer, who has been an IPS selectee, who has been an IS. High command must have thought of giving such a person a chance. Unfortunately, even under the circumstances where the numbers were stacked completely against him, when he was given the chance, in the three years he was there, he was not one able to take people along. One minute. I am stopping you. You are saying that Ajiz Jogi couldn't take people along, but the fact is, he has played spoiler. And he is likely to continue to play spoiler. Is there any possibility of a rapprochement, of a patch-up? No, sir. Because even as our leaders have said, like you mentioned about Bangalore, they talked about like-minded people coming together. There was no blanket suggestion that no matter what happens at any cost, no matter who has what ideology or who has what background, we will all come together to achieve a purpose. So there is an underlying... See, across the country in different states at a national level, all the political parties who opposed to the Bharatiya Janta Party and the NDA and the Narendra Modi government are coming together. For one, Mr. Jogi has not been opposing the Bharatiya Janta Party. He has been an ally of the Bharatiya Janta Party 2003 onwards. You mentioned his cases, you mentioned his criminal cases, you mentioned the attempt to bribe MLA cases, you mentioned the Jaggi murder case. There were other incidents like that which happened. But when Rahul Gandhi Ji has gone and visited him... That is courtesy. I think that is courtesy. If you are in an opposing group, you do not show courtesy at a time when you are very ill. I think it shows a background. It shows that you are above such petty things when it comes to matters of either life or death or when you are very, very ill. Okay. Let me change the topic. I will come to Mahendra Karma Ji and left-wing extremism in Chhattisgarh. Before that, I have a few personal questions to ask you. The Congress and its leadership, including you, you are painted as a party of the rich. Amiroka Rajnethik Dal hai. It is you come from the Sarguja Royal family. You have a close association. Your family has a close association with Digvijay Singh Ji. The point is, though you are a second MLA, when you were... Then there was the issue of you becoming the leader of the opposition, even within your own party. There were people who are supposed to have opposed to. I can name names, you can tell me whether they are correct or not. More importantly, they are saying you are a very wealthy man. It is said, according to the election commission's data, the value of your assets, your wealth is 187 crores in 2008 and after 5 years, 3 times more. And 570 crores. Your land is in 35 places, your house is in Delhi, in Raipur, etc. So the point is, you are supposed to symbolize the elite, the rich elite, the feudal elite, of which also you must say the Shukla family was supposed to be a part. The short point is, those who are opposing you politically, saying you are a party of the rich. Where I was born, I have no choice or no one has a choice about where they are born. I happened to be born in a feudal family. They were erstwhile rulers of Sarguja, this princely state in the northern part of Chhattisgarh. And the way my parents have brought me up, the background I have been brought up in in my family, I am proud to be lucky to have been born in such a background. Because whenever I heard it was always about, think about people, look after people. Do anything for the people. Try to do that. So this is how I grew up in a supposedly rich family or a supposedly feudal family. The training, I got so to say, if it can be called training, was always certainly being told that if you are born in such a family, you have responsibilities. So that is one part. The wealth part or the property part. Three times. Three times. It is possible that it will be more visible now. Because the wealth we have, when the kingdom of the kings was established in the Indian kingdom, there was an agreement. The Indian rule and the dominion of India in these princely states, they understood one thing and the properties were delineated. They were killed. You have just told the number of 35 places. It is possible that it will be 150 places. So the situation with us, it could have happened with a lot of feudals. That we could not create much of a background economic. Some families made it, raised it, ran it, created more wealth from that wealth. The rest of the families that were there, they kept on living on it. They kept on selling it and living on it. So you told the number of 35. If you look at the record, the agreement with the Indian kingdom, now there are 35 left in 150. So the wealth that was found in the agreement at that time, I do not think that the wealth that was made more than that, and the three times it is visible, it increases like a valuation. We make it like God. But you have to say that the position of Congress, the foreign public party is saying today, that the kingdom of the kings of Congress is in this matter. Congress has always been the kingdom of people. Whether it was at the time of freedom, whether it was after freedom, why did it become the position of Congress? Why did it go to people? It was never a matter of wealth and poverty. With Congress, when it went to people and gave an agenda, it could have been independent at that time. It could have been to run away from the British, it could have been to get rid of it. It could have been the freedom of the country. After freedom, the agenda came, development came, Bhakranangal came, Isro came, Atomic Energy came, there were a lot of sectional societies. People came, poverty also came, Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan came, a lot of Shwet Kranti came, Harith Kranti came, Congress's agenda was like this, Congress did not see the rich or the poor, Congress saw the situation of taking them, and the situation of those among the people, Congress said to keep them with us. This is the difference between the mass-based and the cadres. So, Congress's policy, a socialist policy, the policy of connecting people, the policy of development, the policy of liberalization, the policy of introducing technology to the country, the policy of seeing the dream of the century, and the common thread in this, that the people who were goodwill among the people, the Congress connected them with them. So, Mr. Singh, I will tell you whether the people of Chhattisgarh will accept your interpretation of the ideology and the attitude of the Congress. I am sure they will, because it is true. In this juncture, we conclude the first part of our interview with the leader of the opposition of the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly, T.S. Singhal. In the next part of the interview, we discuss issues relating to Maoism, Naxalism, the involvement of the Adani group and other big companies in Chhattisgarh. We discuss whether or not Dr. Raman Singh's government has been really successful in implementing an efficient public distribution system in the state. So, wait for the second part of the interview with T.S. Singhal. And thank you for watching this program.