Uma Bharati Getting back to her elements | N.D.Sharma

Published on 03-07-2008 In General

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Uma Bharati Getting back to her elements

         Uma Bharati is regaining relevance in Madhya Pradesh politics, her sight fixed on the Assembly elections due later this year. Early in June, she captured the centre-stage when she raided, accompanied by her Bharatiya Jana Shakti (BJS) Party activists, a fair price shop, broke the locks and asked the poor to take the food grains. This was to register her party's protest to the scandalous decision of the State government that Public Distribution System (PDS) shops should remain open only three days in a month.

          Those running the government have become so affluent and arrogant that they have lost touch with the realities on the ground and are apparently unaware that the poor people for whom the PDS shops are operated live literally from hand to mouth and cannot be expected to possess money enough for buying provisions for a month or fortnight or even for a few days. Even if they manage to buy it, where will they store it?

          Having failed to convince the officials about their genuine problems, the PDS beneficiaries approached Uma Bharati with a plea to help them. She took no time in collecting her supporters and was soon tearing off the copy of the government order pasted on the wall of the shop at Tila Jamalpura area of Bhopal, breaking open the shop and inviting the poor to take the grains. The police had reached the spot in good strength but they remained stupefied, not knowing what to do. It was only after the former chief minister had left that they decided to register a criminal case, against anonymous offenders. Either they were afraid of the wrath of the Sadhvi or they were plainly demoralised; they did not have the courage to name Uma Bharati as the perpetrator of the offence.

          Some cabinet colleagues of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan are said to have later expressed their unhappiness before him and national organising secretary of the party Ramlal over the government order about the three-day restriction for keeping the PDS shops open. The government quietly revised the order.

         Minister of Water Resources Anup Mishra has publicly stated that he will be happy if the high command decides to take Uma Bharati back into the party, as everybody is feeling bad on losing a family member. This is the first time after Uma Bharati's expulsion from the BJP that an important minister of Madhya Pradesh has spoken publicly in support of the Sadhvi without creating a fuss in the party circles.

          The reason perhaps is the onset of nervousness among party men as they prepare to face the electorate four months hence, with a dismal record of governance which has rampant corruption and utter non-performance as its hallmark. The BJP has little to fear from opposition parties, as of today: the Congress is in complete disarray and the BSP is yet to show its strength; the other parties have only pockets of influence. But it is a different matter with Uma Bharati. If she puts her heart into serious campaigning, she may or may not be able to get her own candidates elected in sufficient strength to form the government, but she can definitely upset Chauhan's dream of getting a second term as chief minister. She has already announced that she will put forward candidates in all the 230 Assembly constituencies and corruption will the main plank of her campaign against the BJP (government).

          She believes that corruption in the State has increased manifold because of the delay in completing inquiries in the corruption cases against chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, his cabinet colleagues and senior officials. On June 4, she undertook a pad-yatra (foot march) to the office of Lokayukta Ripusudan Dayal and pleaded with him to expedite the investigations. She had then described Dayal as "honest and competent".

          Her exalted opinion of the Lokayukta, however, did not last long. When a Bhopal court directed the Kohe-Fiza police a fortnight later to investigate the corruption charges against Lokayukta Ripusudan Dayal, Uma Bharati called on Governor Balram Jakhar to request him to intervene as the two Constitutional authorities (the Lokayukta and the chief minister) were inquiring into corruption charges against each other, thus leading to a Constitutional breakdown. After meeting the Governor, she expressed her apprehension before media persons that both, the chief minister and the Lokayukta, would now exonerate each other of the charges and the corruption would thus get entrenched in the State.

          Her apprehension turned out to be prophetic. The court of Judicial Magistrate First Class (JMFC) D.K.Singh had given to the police time till August 20 to complete the inquiry into the complaint against the Lokayukta and submit the report to the court. The Kohe-Fiza police, however, submitted the inquiry report to the court within a week, claiming that no illegality had been committed in allotting the house to Lokayukta Ripusudan Dayal and his wife Usha Dayal. It would appear that the police had, in their eagerness to give a clean chit to the Lokayukta, summarily dispensed with the procedure laid down in the Code of Criminal Procedure (Cr.P.C.) for investigating a criminal complaint. It is now for the magistrate to accept the report or direct the police to re-investigate the complaint, or depute a judicial magistrate subordinate to him to inquire into the complaint.

          This gave Uma Bharati an opportunity to once again highlight the alleged understanding between the Lokayukta and the Executive on corruption. Her BJS activists gheraoed the Kohe-Fiza police station, not allowing any one to enter the police station or go out of it, and created ruckus alleging that the Kohe-Fiza police had given a clean chit to the Lokayukta at the behest of chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and without taking statement of the complainant or going through the prescribed formalities. Uma Bharati organised dharna in the heart of the city on this issue and threatened to launch a State-wide agitation.

          After remaining in a sulk for a considerable time, the Sadhvi has increased her interactions with the media and is in the process of getting back her propensity for hurling barbs at her adversaries. The other day she observed that the chief minister's wife Sadhna Singh Chauhan has two husbands: one is Shivraj Singh Chauhan who is the chief minister, and the other is some S.R.Singh "who is an employee of the Jaypee Cement. (The allusion was to the registration certificates of controversial dumpers showing Sadhna Singh Chauhan as the wife of S.R.Singh of Jaypee Cement, Rewa). On Lal Krishna Advani's prospects of becoming the Prime Minister, the Sadhvi quipped: one does not become Prime Minister merely by writing a book.

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