Madhya Pradesh- August

When Uma Bharti quit BJP 30 months back and announced the formation of her own party (Bhartiya Janshakti), political pundits predicted that she would give BJP a run for their money in the Central state of Madhya Pradesh. After all it was she who was wholly responsible for BJPs sweeping win over Congress in the previous state elections where Digvijay singh led Congress was completely routed.

But now seasons have changed and so have the predictions. After successfully defeating Congress, Uma Bharti conveniently forgot that it was the BJP wave that had played an important role in her fight. Not only MP, but Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan were also won convincingly.

She was made to think by her inner coterie that it was she who had led the BJP into power and without her BJP will find hard to survive. Nearly 2 and half years later, it’s her party that is finding hard to breathe. The maverick leader is learning the never ending political lessons the hard way.

Her party is on the brink of collapse just three-months before the Assembly election in the State. And the proverbial rats are jumping off the sinking ship. Recently her one of the most trusted confidant and party general secretary Bhagwandas Sabnani came back to the Bharatiya Janata Party fold.

Sabnani’s revolt came as a bolt of blue for Uma who had still not recovered from the twin shock of desertion of the then party national president Raghunandan Sharma who deserted her after he was promised a Rajya Sabha member from Madhya Pradesh with support of BJP. Before that party's national general secretary and former Union Minister Prahlad Patel too snapped his ties with Bhartiya Janshakti on issues of contesting the Gujarat state elections. And before that, it was Madan Lal Khurana, a former Bhartiya Janta Party Chief Minister who went back to BJP.

Those of few who are still in BJS are counting the days when the inevitable will happen and Uma too will crossover to BJP. Sources feel that the wait will be over by the time the dates for the state elections are announced.

Without Patel the party is under financial crisis and is heading for a major split. The Bhartiya Janashakti has witnessed mass scale desertions recently and paucity of funds and resources have ensured that the party workers will have to put no extra efforts to break the 30 months old ties when time calls.

Shivraj Singh Chauhan continues to enjoy the good luck that has been working for him from the day he took over as the CM. Chauhan who was the third CM after Uma Bharti and Babu Lal Gaur recently celebrated 1000 days in office.

Experts feel that with no major controversy, except the “Dumper deal” to court him, Chauhan has performed well in the run-up to the elections. The BSP ( Bijli – Sadak-Pani) which was the main issue in the previous election has been negated by the work carried out by his government. This has resulted in the opposition Congress futilely searching for an issue.

The various people friendly scheme that has been launched in the state like the Kanyadaan Yojana for marriage of poor girls, Ladli Laxmi Scheme for girl children and Annapurana Yojana for subsidized food grain, which has been quite a hit in the neighbouring Chhattisgarh too has ensued that Shivarj will have issues to share with the electorates once the electioneering begins.

Though some section feel that corruption has eaten away the political benefit that could have been gained as the ground level implementation has not been quite up to mark for the schemes to make their total impact. But with the CM putting his foot down before the code of conduct sets-in the desired result will soon trickle in.

Also the party on its part has asked its entire ministers to pay attention to the district that have been put under their charge and spend at least five days in week in these areas.

A high profile meeting of the top leaders of State Congress in Chinndwara on August 22 grabbed quite a few eyeballs in the state. Almost all of the senior leaders of the party including Kamalnath, Digvijay singh, Jamuna Devi, Jyotiaditya Scindia, Ajay Singh, V Narayan Swamy and Suresh Pachori were present at the meeting.

During the meeting Digvijay singh and Subhash Yadav caused a flutter among many feathers when they announced that they were in support of Kamal Nath being projected as the CM.

Later it was reported that the AICC has taken serious note of floating Nath’s candidature as future CM and summoned both Yadav and Singh. Union Minister of State Jyotiraditya Scindia too had strongly objected over the announcement. It is no secret that Scindia, Kamal Nath, state Congress President Suresh Pachauri and Ajay Singh, son of Union HRD minister Arjun Singh all are CM aspirants and they have started their efforts to see to it they get the coveted chair if the Congress wins power.

Uma bharti all set to return back to BJP

If the recent cabinet reshuffle in Madhya Pradesh is to go by, Uma Bharti , the firebrand Sadhvi and the former CM of MP is all set to rejoin BJP, her parent party.

Dr Gaurishankar Shejwar, her most trusted lieutenant who returned to the BJP recently, has been re-inducted into the cabinet and rewarded with energy, medical education and bio-diversity and bio-technology.

By inducting the MLA from Vidisha who was earlier suspended from the party for supporting Uma Bharti’s political outfit BJS (Bhartiya Janashakti party), into the cabinet BJP has given clear signs of the things to come. This move is being seen as the first of the many steps being worked upon to placate Bharti and pave a way for her return.

Bharti who formed BJS after her expulsion from BJP for preventing Shivraj Singh Chauhan from becoming CM , has not been able to justify its existence. Though the party is still in its nascent stage, but with Bharti at its helm, it was expected that it would be able to give some fight to BJP, a thing which has not happened.

BJS, fought & lost the by-election for her Madhya Pradesh assembly seat of Bada Malehra, even though Uma Bharati had campaigned extensively for her candidate. BJS has also experienced defeats in the Lok Sabha bypolls for Amethi (UP), Vidisha (MP), Bhagalpur(Bihar).

The BJP General Secretary in charge of Madhya Pradesh affairs, Ananth Kumar, refused to give any direct anwers to queries over Uma Bharti’s return. Significantly he also refrained from using aggressive language, which earlier was norm against the Sanyasin.

Observers are of the view that keeping in the mind the state assembly election that are slated to be held next year , Bharti may well be inducted back and given the post of National general Secretary or State BJP president. Though some section of the organization are against her being given the charge of state organization considering her ‘political volatile nature’.

Speculation of her return has been strengthened after she did not field BJS contestants for Lok Sabha by-elections for two seats in Madhya Pradesh, held in March 2007. Also, she agreed to withdraw her candidates to the 2007 Uttar Pradesh assembly elections at the request of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad Chief, Ashok Singhal.

It’s not that only Uma bharti will gain upon her return. BJP is expecting an anti-incumbency wave in the state and to counter this they need someone like Uma Bharti who has not lost her charisma to attract crowds. BJP also needs to Consolidate over the infighting that has been plaguing the state Congress with a power struggle brewing between Subhash Yadav, Jamuna Devi, Ajay singh , Digvijay Singh and the young MP from Gwalior Jyotir Aditya Scindia.

Her rivals in BJP, may find it difficult to stop her from joining BJP considering her proximity to the RSS, VHP and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. The only thing which can spoil her and BJP’s plans is she herself .

The chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, who had succeeded Babulal Gaur, has further cut his predecessor to size by making him commercial taxes minister. Earlier, he was over looking the Bhopal gas tragedy ministry along with Commercial Tax. Gaur is not happy with his downsizing ahd is on path to become a rebel and is alleging Chauhan had become jealous of his (Gaur’s ) popularity.

Chauhan inducted a Sikh from Jabalpur, Harjinder Singh Baboo, as his cabinet colleague. He will be the second Sikh minister in the state after a gap of ten years. Tanwant Singh Keer used to be a minister in Congress led Digvijay Singh government. Baboo, the young legislator from Jabalpur is himself a victim of anti-Sikh riots of 1984 and his inclusion in Chauhan cabinet would definitely help the BJP attract Sikh votes.

http://merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=126449

Is BJP falling apart ?

With Atal and Advani on the brink of retirement, a power struggle has started in between the leaders who think that its now their turn to take charge.

Politics can be a cruel game. Those who were not aware would be now after seeing the condition of Ms Uma Bharti. She had everything what we thought was required for a politician to succeed, the support of the general mass, a clean and honest image, but then also she will be counted as one of the many leaders who promised much but could not deliver.

Uma Bharti is regarded as the leader of the lakhs of hardcore Hindus, those who strongly supported Hinduvta, and those for whom the construction of Ram Mandir was a sentimental issue.

Ayodhya has always been a very important issue of the BJP's election manifesto, an issue which it only racks up at the time of election, and later dumps it after the objective of awakening the sentiments of the Hindus is fulfilled. Bharti should be credited for not being a hypocrite or an opportunist by not dumping the issue, one which brought her party to power. At least she is not a typical Indian politician.

She was the one who was accredited for routing the Congress government from Madhya Pradesh, a task which many thought was very difficult, if not impossible.

Uma's turbulent time started when she resigned from her chief ministership over the issue of the foreign citizenship of Sonia Gandhi. The party tried to match the sacrifice of Sonia Gandhi with the sacrifice of Uma relinquishing the CM's chair. The party thought that this would be an appropriate time to project the firebrand lady as a face of BJP, one who sacrificed her CM's chair for national pride. The lady resigned, with a hope that at the appropriate time her rightful place will be returned to her. She was disappointed and Babu Lal Gaur was made the CM.

She was constantly sidelined in the party after she quit the Madhya Pradesh chief ministership, which left her frustrated at the treatment being meted out to her. Then came the famous press conference in which Bharti had a one on one with the LK Advani, as a result of which she was suspended from the party, only to be taken back latter due to pressure from the RSS people.

The nomination of Shivraj Singh Chauhan as the new CM broke the camel's back and the Sadhvi was forced to come out with all what she had built up in the recent years. She revolted and even she must not have been surprised in the context of the Indian politics to see many of those leaders who were considered to be loyal to her, left her and distanced themselves from her.

She has acted very wisely by taking a pad yatra from Bhopal to Ayodhya, a yatra which will remind the people that she is the real BJP, remind the BJP that she still is the old sadhvi. By doing this she will be hoping of steering the sentiments of the general population and thus prove that she is a leader of the people.

If one closely follows the BJP, one will at a point come to the conclusion that the party is falling apart. With Atal and Advani on the brink of retirement, a power struggle has started in between the leaders who think that its now their turn to take charge. The party does have many "politicians" but not many "leaders" to boast of, those who can be shouldered the responsibility of steering the BJP out of trouble. Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh or Sushma Swaraj have their limitations, and they cannot be expected to slip in to the shoes of Atal or Advani. Advani losing the grip has given the opportunity to these people to dictate the functioning of the party.

It's very hard to imagine that this was the same party which was functioning at its prime in the early 2000 and a party that conceived India shining. The "party with a difference" is grappling with the problem of "differences" coming up between its own family. Its main ally in Maharastra, the Shiv Sena is on the path to commit hara-kiri, the scene of Rajasthan is also not good with dissidents making life difficult for the Vasundhra Raje government, and to top it all; Madhya Pradesh. It seems that the problem has just started for the people in saffron.

It will be quite right to say that the BJP has done itself more harm then good while acting under the garb of discipline while suspending her. BJP now faces the danger of its two faced politics of pleasing the Indian and enjoying the Hindu secular votes being exposed.

By curbing the popular leaders they are limiting the base of the BJP among the general mass. Now let's just hope that we don't see Narendra Modi being forced to embark on a similar yatra.

Bharti went to jail for the cause which was dear to the party, sacrificing her chair, but she could not realize there is no sentiment in politics, there is no value in politics. Pity, the young woman who made hundreds of BJP workers to occupy air-conditioned cars and bungalows is now literally on the streets leading to Ayodhya, a place which was once dear to her party president LK Advani too.

(http://www.centralchronicle.com/20051206/0612305.htm)