Diggy Raja back with a bang. What's he up to now?

The conspiracy line originally taken by him targeting the anti-graft crusaders, especially against Baba Ramdev whom he attacked with the kind of venom not usually seen in public life, labeling them as communal, Right wing forces who were fronting for the BJP-RSS combine, is now the official line of both the government and the party. Also in one stroke Digvijaya Singh has positioned himself as a leader who, if necessary, can even take on somebody as senior as Pranab Mukherjee, the Finance Minister and the de facto number 2 in Manmohan Singh’s cabinet. On more than one occasion in the past week Digvijaya Singh has gone on record questioning the judgment and wisdom of the veteran minister in going to the airport and engaging with Baba Ramdev. [caption id=“attachment_23736” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“The rise of Digvijaya Singh. Photo courtesy ibnlive.com”]  [/caption] It’s not the first time Diggy Raja has so flexed his muscle. Last year he launched a frontal attack on Home Minister P Chidambram, not only questioning his hardline policies towards Naxals and Maoists but also charged the senior minister of suffering from “intellectual arrogance”. It’s another thing that on that occasion he had to beat a retreat. It was officially communicated to the media that he had met the home minister and explained his stand. It was seen in political circles as an euphemism for expressing regrets without saying the same in that many words. No such embarrassing backtrack appears to be on the cards this time around as the party appears to be solidly backing his line. The Congress mouthpiece, Sandesh, also came out with an editorial Thursday echoing what Digvijaya Singh has been saying. And a minister as senior as Chidambram has also put a stamp of approval on his charges by saying the RSS was behind both Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev. It’s interesting to note that the only two top leaders who have so far not been publicly targeted by  Digvijaya are Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary Ahmed Patel. So has he managed to successfully position himself as the future prime minister or the political secretary of the Congress president. Or is he eyeing the Pranab Mukherjee slot ie a defacto deputy prime minister’s position in a Rahul Gandhi cabinet. Nobody really knows the answers to these speculative questions but the rise and rise of Digvijaya is a subject of many an animated conversations in Delhi’s power elite. It may be mentioned that when Digvijay lost the assembly elections in 2004 he announced he would not contest elections and take any government post for ten years. Interestingly, that self -imposed exile will end in 2014, the year of the next Lok Sabha elections. The attack on Kamal Nath by one of his loyalists and Congress MP from Ujjain, Premchand Guddu, is being seen by some in the context of the bigger power struggle underway in the Congress. Guddu has demanded action against Kamal Nath for playing host to Baba Ramdev in his constituency Chindwara last month. Guddu has alleged that Kamal Nath not just sat through the Baba’s address while the yoga guru was criticising the Congress-led government and also the Gandhi family, the minister’s shradha (faith) was so all encompassing that Kamal Nath even washed Baba’s feet in a welcome gesture. The MP from Ujjain is understood to have sent audio and video recording as well as press clippings of the proceedings to the party leadership. The long-running rivalry between Kamal Nath and Digvijay Singh in Madhya Pradesh Congress politics is old story. There’s a new twist being given to this frontal attack on Kamal Nath by a known Digvijay Singh loyalist, which makes it more than just another routine intra-party squabble. Kamal Nath is a protégé of Ahmad Patel and but for support from the latter he would have been dropped by the prime minister in his last reshuffle. An attack on him now, when another round of cabinet reshuffle is imminent, is being seen by some as Digvijaya’s way of testing waters against the all powerful Ahmed Bhai.