BHOPAL, AUGUST 2: ``Chattisgarh paves the way for the creation of Vindhya Pradesh and other smaller states,'' said Madhya Pradesh Vidhan Sabha speaker Shriniwas Tewari when the state Assembly yesterday welcomed the passage of the Chattisgarh Bill in the Lok Sabha.Tewari's remarks poured a bucket of cold water on the celebrations of the 90 MLAs from Chattisgarh. Once the Rajya Sabha passes the Bill and the President notification fixes a date, they will automatically become members of the Chattisgarh Legislative Assembly - managing the affairs of a new state with its own capital, legislature, secretariat and the high court.That's a lot to cheer about. But who will be the new state's first Chief Minister? The question haunts each of the 48 prospective Congress members of the proposed 90-member Chattisgarh Legislative Assembly.The problem is that too many Congress leaders are fighting against each other. The two former MP Chief Ministers - Shyama Charan Shukla and Moti Lal Vora - hail from the region. AICC spokesman Ajit Jogi - who moved from Raigarh in Chattisgarh to Shahdol during the last Lok Sabha elections - has been making a desperate bid to stage a comeback in Chattisgarh politics.Then there is former union minister V.C. Shukla. Denied tickets in the last Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha elections, he is the only heavyweight politician who mobilised the people during the last one year and a half through his Chattisgarh Rajya Sangharsha Morcha.Finally, there is the group of Digvijay Singh's ministers from Chattisgarh - including Excise Minster Satya Narain Sharma, Public Relations Minister Ravindra Chaube and K.K. Gupta - who laughed at V.C. Shukla's recent jail bharo agitation and Chattisgarh Mahabandh.Stunned by the unexpected success of Shukla's agitational politics and the speed with which the NDA Government in Delhi is rushing the Chattisgarh Bill through Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, they find themselves in no-man's land.By raising the demand for a special economic package for the new Chattisgarh state before its formation, V.C. Shukla and Congress MP Charan Das Mahant have shown that they are in no mood to give up the political space the Chattisgarh Rajya Sangharsha Morcha's recent agitation has given them.The scenario presents the Congress high command with a delicate choice. If Sonia Gandhi continues to marginalise Shukla on the advice of her coterie, she may be jeopardising the very existence of the party organisation in the region.It also indicates possibilities of changing power equations among the Congress leaders of what will remain of Madhya Pradesh after the grafting of the Chattisgarh State. Though Chief Minister Digvijay Singh should have no difficulty in managing his show, despite pinpricks from seniors like Arjun Singh, Kanmal Nath and Madhavrao Scindia, he will have a much slender majority in the State Assembly to bank upon.It is this confusion in the Congress, which has shown a ray of hope to the BJP - which will have only 36 MLAs in the new Chattisgarh State Assembly. Though BJP strongman Lakhi Ram Agarwal is taciturn, Young Turks like Raipur Mayor Brij Mohan are ready to fish in troubled waters. ``A Congress majority doesn't necessarily mean a Congress government,'' they say.But the BJP in Madhya Pradesh - and particularly in Chattisgarh - too is a badly divided house. This came to the fore in Raipur two months ago when Sundarlal Patwa sponsored a mini-rebellion against Lakhi Ram Agarwal. The latter returned the compliment by almost totally eliminating Patwa followers in Chattisgarh during recent organisational elections.This indicates that intra-party squabbles will play a major role in the resolution of inter-party power play in the new state. The way V.C. Shukla managed to wean away some of the known BJP functionaries in Chattisgarh towards his Chattisgarh Rajya Sangharsha Morcha during the last one year shows this.
