Sobbing in court, I thought I was finished… today, I have been cleared: Asha Kumari

“I was quietly sobbing in the courtroom (in February) while my phone kept ringing. Relatives and friends were calling me about a news flash that had mentioned three years in jail. I thought I was finished,” she told The Indian Express Sunday, shortly after Sonia Gandhi had called her to say the Congress had put her in charge of Punjab.

She looks at the elevation as clearance of her name. “It was a shock. Although the high command had alerted me two days earlier that something big was coming my way, I did not really expect this,” said Kumari, an AICC secretary, as she drove from Dalhousie to New Delhi.

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“In fact, I had told them about my case and that the conviction could be an embarrassment,” she added. “They had asked for all my case papers and the high court’s order of March 19 suspending the trial court order for legal scrutiny. Today, I have been cleared and told about being in charge of Punjab.”

The case had been against a dozen persons including Asha Kumari’s husband Brijendra Singh, since deceased. A resident of Chamba, Kuldeep Singh, had alleged in a complaint that Asha Kumari and the others had forged revenue records and fabricated wills to transfer nearly 60 bighas of forest land to their names in 1998. The state vigilance and anti corruption bureau had probed the case. Since then, six accused have died including Singh, who belonged to the erstwhile royal family of Chamba.

“One should understand that I got married into the Chamba royal family, which was already facing property cases relating to encroachment,” Kumari said. “I was not individually involved in the alleged land grab. Now the matter is sub judice since the high court has suspended the sentence. God has been kind.”

Born into the royal family of Sarguja in Chhattisgarh, Kumari is a daughter of Madneshwar Saran Singh Deo, who later retired as chief secretary in Madhya Pradesh. She used to be a students’ leader in Bhopal while her brother T S Deo Singh is Leader of the Opposition in Chhattisgarh.

Kumari is also a niece of Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, who played a role in elevating her to mainstream politics in 1985, when she was elected to the assembly for the first time. Since then, however, she is seen as having fallen out with her uncle.

In 2012, when Virbhadra led the Congress in the assembly polls, Asha Kumari was in the rival camp projecting an alternative leadership under Kaul Singh Thakur, now health minister. When Virbhadra returned to power, he kept her out of his cabinet. Later, Sonia Gandhi made her AICC secretary.

“I have always tried to brave turbulent times, both on a personal front and in politics,” Kumari said. She admitted, however, that the land case will continue to haunt her once she takes up her new charge, with rival parties and detractors in the Congress set to take it up.