KHALGHAT (KHARGONE), NOV 23: The resentment simmering against Chief Minister Digvijay Singh within the Congress spilled over the streets on Monday with a massive `chakka jaam' (road blockade) organised by former deputy CM Subhash Yadav on the Agra-Mumbai Road here.The presence of Khargone Congress MP Tarachand Patel and half-a-dozen Congress MLAs in the agitation gave the clear indication that the threat of disciplinary action issued by Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) on Sunday night had failed to deter the anti-Digvijay lobby.More ominous for the CM was Yadav's claim that three Congress heavy-weights from Madhya Pradesh CWC member Arjun Singh, AICC general secretary Madhavrao Scindia and former minister Kamal Nath backed this agitation.AICC spokesman Ajit Jogi another senior leader from the state also refused to endorse the MPCC's stand that a public agitation of this sort by Congressmen against their party government should be quelled.``It is an internal matter of the party,'' wasJogi's cryptic comment in Raipur when journalists sought his views on the agitation led by Yadav. Earlier last week, during a visit to Ujjain after a similar blockade led by Congress legislator Kalpana Parulekar, Jogi had publicly sympathised with the cause.Today, the dissidents had mobilised an impressive gathering for the four-hour blockade which kept traffic on the busy national highway for most part of the day. Though Indore Commissioner Iqbal Ahmed had ordered the diversion of traffic from Indore and the blockade at Khalghat was lifted at 4 p.m., authorities expected traffic on the highway to return to normalcy only by Tuesday morning.In his address to farmers, Yadav insisted that his agitation was not prompted by considerations of personal gain. ``I am not hankering for a berth in the Cabinet or a post in the organisation,'' he said. ``I am only here only to expose the Digvijay government's insensitivity to the plight of MP's farmers.'' Yadav's self-proclaimed altruism notwithstanding, politicalobservers see the Khalghat stir as the beginning of yet another power struggle within the MPCC, aiming at a change of guard in the state in the long run.``The number of party MLAs and MPs joining the dissidents is insignificant because whenever their has been a change of guard in MP, it was invariably done at the instance of the party high command,'' a senior Congress leader said. Knowing this, Yadav has indulged in intensive lobbying in Delhi to convince the high command that the MP government's insensitivity to the people was reflected in the party's poor showing in the recent Lok Sabha polls. In their own way and on different occasions, other party stalwarts like the Shukla brothers, Motilal Vora and Kamal Nath have expressed similar views.That Digvijay Singh is not taking things lightly is reflected in the tenor of Sunday's MPCC meeting to which Subhash Yadav was invited in a last-minute patch-up bid. Yadav had already informed MPCC chief Radha Kishan Malaviya of his inability to attend the meeting.But the CM was there to give an exhaustive, point-by-point rejoinder to Yadav's charges. And he had brought Finance Minister Ajay Mushran and Agriculture Minister Mahendra Singh Kalukheda to back him up.The initiation of disciplinary action against Yadav and his followers also marks a perceptible change in the attitude of the Digvijay-Malaviya team which currently calls the shots in the state Congress.During the run up to the Khalghat agitation when the Yadav camp was hitting them left and right the duo had all along maintained that there was no dissident activity in the state Congress and the matter would be resolved.
