A guru for the sadhvi

Pandey doesn’t even bother to parry the charges, ‘‘There are two ways in which I am associated with this constituency. I was MLA from Pattan from 1990 to 1993, and the Assembly constituency is part of this Lok Sabha constituency. And secondly I am a disciple of Dharam Guru Dwarkapeeth Sankaracharya. Due to my association with him over the past 20 years I have visited each village of this constituency.’’

‘‘Uma Bharti appears before the people in the garb of a sanyasin. I have been associated with the Sankaracharya since I was 13 years old. I also wanted to renounce the world. Even today I am not married and I never will. He turned me in the direction of social service, asking me to dedicate myself to the community and the country. My aim is to ensure that intellectual development is not everything in life. We need a spiritual aspect to life as well.’’

About the Shankracharya advantage, she says, ‘‘There are no two ways about it. This is his janambhoomi. An enormous number of the people are his disciples and I certainly expect the support of my Guru bhais.’’ And as for his explicit support, ‘‘Of course I will get his blessings.

I cannot contest without this and this is well known. My appearances with him are no recent phenomenon. Whenever he comes to his Matradham I go and meet him. And when he recently returned from Hyderabad I did so again. And at these functions I always get up address the women present because I am the secretary of his mahila ashram. In any case dharam is a necessity in politics. And if the BJP raises these charges against me, then so be it, I see nothing wrong with it.’’

Adds Thakur, ‘‘If the BJP was seen doing the same thing we would have faced no end of criticism for mixing religion with politics, we would have been criticised for violating dharamnirpekshta.’’ He hopes that Narendra Modi will say something about this when he addresses a meeting in Seoni later this evening. But more than Modi, over the next week the BJP is drawing solace from the fact that thanks to the Ujjain Kumbh, Swaroopanand will not be able to return to the constituency till the day of polling. All indications are he will not but his disciples are already gearing up for a massive Bhagwati path on the April 30, annually observed as the foundation day of the matradham temple. And this may well provide Kalyani Pandey a final much needed boost.