Raja vs sanyasin

Shift the scene to the heart of a wildlife sanctuary, early morning. Some journalists on a jeep run into Digvijay Singh who is on a hunt of his own, Nikon in hand. To all appearances it is an unplanned encounter, but soon enough he is answering questions and posing for photographs. He even remembers to wish one on his birthday. A far cry from the OBC audience, but the result is much the same.

The Charmer

8216;8216;IN person he can be utterly and magnificently charming. He can charm the birds off a tree,8217;8217; admits M N Buch, former civil servant and now one of Digvijay8217;s most trenchant critics. This charm is one of Digvijay8217;s most potent political weapons. So much so that the current leader of opposition Babu Lal Gaur makes it a point, without much success, to avoid being photographed in convivial terms with Digvijay. 8216;8216;I don8217;t know the context in which any such photograph will surface,8217;8217; he says having learnt from the fate of his predecessor Gauri Shankar Shejwar, who was removed more due to a whisper campaign, centring around a photograph blown up and displayed in the CM8217;s room in the Assembly, alleging his closeness to Digvijay.

In an age where politics is about coteries, factions and factotums, Digvijay stands alone. A politician who has been able to remove every obstacle in his way, yet one who has hardly ever annoyed anyone. It is impossible to find anyone who is critical of him at a personal level. In the game of politics this charm contributes to making him, adds Buch, 8216;8216;a top class player. There is no way anyone in the state BJP can even begin to match him.8217;8217;

Kaptan Singh Solanki, BJP state organising general secretary, admits as much. 8216;8216;He plays the politics of cunning and deception with much success. He is able to 8216;manage8217; a lot of things. Our Central ministers come and praise him here, the newspapers sing his praises. When the BJP held a meet in Bhopal he organised a meal for everyone, at the recent national convention in Indore he send gifts to every visitor. His is the politics of commerce, grant gifts with the expectation of bigger favours.8217;8217;

Uma8217;s Blunders

IN the triumphant aftermath of Gujarat, Uma Bharti strode onto the political stage of the state. And to back her up, the BJP played every Hindutva card up its sleeve. Following a report of cow slaughter in Ganj Basoda, Muslim shops were looted and burnt. In Dhar, an RSS front organisation, after years of dormancy, instigated a mass struggle to 8216;liberate8217; the Bhojshala/Kamal Maula Masjid.

Even when Uma had entered the electoral fray in MP, a senior serving bureaucrat had predicted, 8216;8216;He will keep her off balance, he has plenty up his sleeve and her own antics will help him.8217;8217; So far the prediction has been accurate and not because of the success of Panchayati Raj, or other social initiatives. For every BJP move, Digvijay has had a countermove.

Uma herself hasn8217;t helped matters by needlessly floundering over controversies such as the offering of a cake at a Hanuman Mandir. Or more recent reports that she took over state deputy CM Subhash Yadav8217;s Ist AC coupe, forcing him to cancel a train journey.

Consider the sequence:

8226; The violence in Ganj Basoda took place on January 13, on January 22 Uma Bharti8217;s brother Swami Lodhi, announced that he is holding talks with Digvijay and may join the party soon. It was no coincidence that Digvijay even took the trouble to fly to Tikamgarh for Swamiji8217;s daughter8217;s birthday last year, a party Uma skipped.

8226; Early in February, when the Bhojshala agitation at its peak, ill-health threatened to prevent Uma Bharti from attending an important BJP workers8217; meet. Digvijay, ever obliging, 8216;lent8217; her the state helicopter and even before it was airborne, leaked the information to most Bhopal newspapers. Suddenly, the BJP found itself on the defensive. 8216;8216;It is not Digvijay8217;s personal property,8217;8217; thundered state president Kailash Joshi a little too late. The damage was already done.

The Firm Hand

WHEN Digvijay is not oozing charm, he is displaying toughness.

8226; The arson at Ganj Basoda was firmly checked, VHP activists were put behind bars.

8226; The Bhojshala issue was never allowed to spiral out of control, even when the Hindu Jagran Manch attempted to broadbase the protest to surrounding areas of the Malwa region.

8226; It was because he had arrested Sadhvi Rithambra five years ago, that the Trishul Diksha never even got off the ground in MP.

8226; It was only after the uneventful arrest of Acharya Dharmendra in MP that Gehlot gathered the courage to put Praveen Togadia behind bars.

His setbacks:

EVEN as he was scoring brownie points Digvijay was faced with a series of major setbacks, each of which was enough to sink a lesser politician.

8226; The Centre cynically chose to use the ASI as a political tool over the Bhojshala agitation and Digvijay had to give in.

8226; Large-scale discrepancies were uncovered in the electoral rolls in the state, leading the EC to order suspension of three Collectors.

8226; The High Court ordered a CBI inquiry into the frequent power cuts in the state.

Digvijay handled each of them 8216;8216;cleverly, if not admirably8217;8217; according to one supporter. On the Bhojshala issue he stood his ground till the point where the Hindu Jagran Manch was looking for some face-saving device to show 8216;victory8217;. The Centre8217;s ill-advised step came too late for it to be seen as the triumph of an agitation that had petered out a good month before.

Back-pedalling furiously, delaying matters, turning to constitutional bodies, Digvijay similarly managed to keep the EC at bay, sending a clear signal to the bureaucracy. Says Solanki, 8216;8216;This is just a diversion. Even over Bhojshala he could just have agreed to the final decision much earlier. Instead people died. Instead of development he will continue to raise such diversionary issues and try and lower the respect that people have for Uma Bharti.8217;8217;

Egg in the cake

WHY did the BJP fall for the bait over the egg in the cake? Admits Solanki, 8216;8216;On such issues I feel it would have been better not to react. But if the channels show something over and over again our own workers will misinterpret our silence, they will ask why we are not responding to charges. Digvijay stokes the fire, the media asks questions and we are forced to reply.8217;8217; Counters deputy CM Subhash Yadav, 8216;8216;How is it a diversion of issues? If a sister can8217;t look after her brother how will she look after a state?8217;8217;

Does Digvijay8217;s antics mean the much projected social progress of the state is a myth? 8216;8216;Yes,8217;8217; says Buch. 8216;8216;He is inimical to systems and institutions. The process began with the installation of Chief Secretaries and DGPs who were weaklings. He deals with everyone 8212; from the Collectors and the SPs down to the thanedars 8212; directly.8217;8217;

Of late, the BJP wants to focus here. According to Solanki, 8216;8216;We should be talking about what the state government has failed to do. How many of the promises of the Congress manifesto in 1998 have been fulfilled? We need to look at the facts about the power and the road situation.8217;8217;

Says Yadav, 8216;8216;Most of these are non-issues. The question of corruption is between the sarpanch and the panchayat, it doesn8217;t affect the voter. It is not right to say our record is lacking, look at the achievement on education. We have managed universal access to primary education, there has been tremendous increase in literacy.8217;8217; He, however, agrees that 8216;8216;the only real problem is the power situation.8217;8217;