By F M Britto

Raipur, May 29, 2020: Ajit Pramod Kumar Jogi, the first chief minister of Chhattisgarh, died on May 29 following a cardiac arrest, after battling for life for the past 20 days. The Protestant politician was 72.

Jogi, a Protestant Christian, is survived by his wife Renu and the only son Amit, both active in politics.

Jogi was known for his administrative abilities, diplomatic skills, as a promoter of the backward and minority communities. The shrewd politician is also known for his oratorical skills, and writings.

He was born on April 29, 1946, in Pendra Road, near Bilaspur. His father Kashi Prasad Jogi hailed from the Dalit Satnami community and his mother Kanti Mani belonged to tribal community.

After his high school studies at the Mission school in Bilaspur, Jogi did his Mechanical Engineering in Bhopal, winning the University Gold Medal in 1968. After working briefly as a lecturer at the National Institute of Technology in Raipur, he entered the Indian Police Service in 1968 and after two years joined the Indian Administrative Service.

Then he served as the collector of Gwalior, Raipur and Indore in the undivided Madhya Pradesh for 14 years. His only daughter Anusha died when he was collector in Indore.

During Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure he joined the Indian National Congress Party. He was elected a Rajya Sabha member for two terms (1986-1998) from the undivided Madhya Pradesh state. In the Congress party and government he held many important posts like its spokesman, a committee member of the Human Resource Development. He was elected a Member of Parliament from the tribal Christian populated Raigarh constituency in 1998.
When Chhattisgarh state was created from Madhya Pradesh in 2000, Jogi was appointed its first chief minister by Sonia Gandhi, the Congress president. He held the post from November 9, 2000 to December 6, 2003.

Many credit him for laying the foundation for the infrastructural development of the new state and its people with his organizational skills and intellectual foresight.

Due to rivalries in the ruling Congress party, allegedly spearheaded by Vidhya Charan Shukla, another strong contender for the CM’s post, the Congress lost the first election in the state to the opposition BJP by 13 seats. Jogi and his son Amit were alleged to have tried to topple the BJP’s Raman Singh government by trying to purchase the BJP legislators.

Ajit Jogi succeeded in getting elected to the 14th Lok Sabha, 2004-2008, from Mahasamund constituency defeating BJP’s VC Shukla. But during the election campaign, Jogi met with a fatal car accident on April 20, 2004, near Gariabandh, 130 km away the capital city Raipur. Since then he was on wheelchair, although he was active in politics.

Jogi and his son were arrested in June 2007 in connection with the murder of Nationalist Congress Party treasurer Ram Avtar Jaggi on June 4, 2003. But the Central Bureau of Investigation after five years of registering the case, declared him not guilty. But the BJP alleged that the Congress-led UPA misused CBI to protect Ajit Jogi.
In 2008 Ajit Jogi got elected as a member of the Legislative Assembly of the state representing the tribal reserved Marwahi constituency. BJP once again came into power.

Jogi and his son were alleged to have helped the opposition BJP to win the Legislature election in the 2014 Antagarh bypolls elections, by making the Congress candidate Manturam Pawar to withdraw his name on the last day without the knowledge of Congress. For their anti-party activities, the Congress expelled his son Amit for six years on Jan 6, 2015, and proposed the expulsion of Ajit Jogi too.

Rebelling against the party, Ajit Jogi left the Congress and formed a rival Janta Congress Chhattisgarh (J) party on June 6, 2016. His formation of the party was considered to be a threat to the Congress than to the BJP, since Congress might lose the traditional predominant Satnami SC votes, to which community his father belonged.

But in the following Assembly election in December 2018, his party won only a handful of seats. And the Congress returned to power with thumbing majority. Ajit Jogi won the election again from the ST reserved Marwahi constituency. Ajit Jogi could neither form the government in the state again nor play the trump card, as he allegedly expected. After the dismal performance many of his supporters returned to the Congress and his party became insignificant.

A high-level judicial committee dismissed in August 2019 his claim of belonging to a Scheduled Tribe, as he had always claimed. Ajit Jogi was booked under Indian Penal Code sections for cheating and forgery. Facing arrest warrant in the fake caste certificate case, he complained of breathing problem and was admitted for a few days in a private hospital in Delhi. But soon he returned to active politics till the end.