NEW DELHI: Even as Narendra Modi stole the show at the BJP national council meeting on Sunday, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan provided the contrast, countering Modi’s flamboyance with his bottom-up approach to development and his earthy lines to reach out to people in the state which will go for assembly polls later this year.

If Chouhan wins the Madhya Pradesh polls for which he and his party look confident, it would be his third consecutive term in office and put him in the same league as Modi.

If Modi’s theme was growth and governance, Chouhan’s mantra was ‘Antyoday’, or reaching out to the last man in the social pyramid – the poor, the farmer, women , daily wage labourers and senior citizens.

Chouhan rattled off the successful schemes that he had started and which were adopted at the national level and by other states including Congress-ruled states like the ‘Ladli Laxmi Yojna’. He kept comparing the success stories of his state with that of Gujarat and said, “The examples of good governance that BJP is providing is certainly there in Gujarat, but they are also there in other BJP ruled states.”

Chouhan referred to himself as the father, brother, uncle, son to different sections of the electorate, relating to them as one of their family. In contrast, Modi is a distant leader whose enigma adds to his charisma. Both Chouhan and Modi will be inducted into the BJP’s parliamentary board soon.

The mild-mannered Chouhan reached out to the people including his electorate by saying, “We are in politics to create better polity and serve the people, mostly the downtrodden who cannot help themselves. The aim is not to get to the chair but to serve the last man standing.”

He stood out in his humility as opposed to the high-profile, flamboyant and aggressive Modi who scored by hitting out at rival Congress and went without naming any BJP leader sharing the stage with him. Chouhan, on the contrary, addressed each of the leaders respectfully by name and did not forget to mention Deen Dayal Upadhyay and Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

As he gave out the growth figures of Madhya Pradesh and details of how the state had been pulled out of BIMARU status, Chouhan said, “Madhya Pradesh is my temple, its people are my god and I am the pujari (priest) at the temple.

