Bhopal Diary: Shivraj’s PR overdrive and case of the drunk minister

By Chandna C Arora Bhopal: After the Modi blitzkrieg left the BJP leadership and many others awestruck, it’s time for Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan to wake up to the media reality. Chauhan has realised, rather late in the day, that he is missing out on propaganda points despite having achievements comparable to his Gujarat counterpart. And this is probably what cost him a place in the party’s highest decision-making body. So off he was on a public relations overdrive, courting the media like he never did before. The sudden media interest in him was partly due to the antipathy towards Modi, who many believe is trumpeting his achievements to run down other good performers in the party. [caption id=“attachment_710286” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan. Image courtesy PIB[/caption] He was talking to all major news channels, starting with a lengthy interview aired by NDTV. Soon, his PR personnel found themselves slotting his time for all major news channels from CNN-IBN to Times Now, Aaj Tak, ABP News, and for all major newspapers of the country. In all, there were some 30 requirements to be met from India’s biggest media players. Shivraj, no doubt, was mighty pleased with all that attention. So all were welcome, all were entertained and all obliged with lengthy interviews, bites, info and, of course, the customary add-ons. However, the good times were short-lived. After three days of hectic activity, the publicity over-drive suddenly screeched to a halt. According to the party grapevine not many in the BJP top brass was happy the way he was hogging the limelight. It was proving embarrassing to other senior leaders. Always a prudent man, Shivraj got the message. He didn’t want this self-publicity drive to seem like a revolt against the party’s decision to take Modi in and leave him out of the BJP national executive. The result: all interviews have been cancelled. And life is back to normal for the chief minister. Minister, mind your language What was this minister smoking, err drinking, when he made that speech? Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Class Welfare Minister (now former) Kunwar Vijay Shah was in high spirits while addressing an all-girls summer camp at Jhabua and he took things a bit too far. The cabinet minister, sources present at the site said, delivered a speech that would put Dada Kondke of the double-entendre fame to shame. Allegedly drunk, the minister regaled the young feminine crowd with how he got two lady party workers ‘one free for one’ on this visit of his to Jhabua; he went on to remind the young listeners how he knew they could never forget their ‘first love’. He spoke of what kind of clothes would or would not be given by the government to the girls, while making near obscene gestures with his hands depicting various body parts of women. The lewd talk touched a new low when he spoke brazenly of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s wife Sadhna Singh. The minister did not stop with giving just a flirtatious connotation to a conversation held between him and the CM’s wife. He went on to entertain the crowd with how Sadhna Singh spoke to him making small of her husband the CM of Madhya Pradesh. He said Sadhna Singh had told him that if her husband, the CM, would not provide proper woolens for the SC ST students, she would make sure he slept out in the cold. The offensive comments accompanied by unpleasant body language made many of the audience get up and leave. Media channels were quick to latch on to the speech and soon his ‘great’ solo performance was all over the place. As an embarrassed BJP leadership was busy discussing the matter, the Congress launched a campaign supporting Sadhna. Last heard, Shah has been sacked as minister. Shut up please, Mr Digvijaya Singh Trust AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh not to shy away from making tall claims. On his recent trip to Madhya Pradesh, the former chief minister said all the development in the state was his contribution and no credit should go to the current BJP government. However, the incongruity in his claims is hard to miss. Till the other day he was blaming the Shivraj Singh government for making ‘false claims’ about the growth and development in Madhya Pradesh. Obviously, the Congress loose cannon chooses to ignore the condition of the state under him. In 2003, when BJP first came to power, the newly inducted CM Uma Bharti would not have enough of calling MP a ‘bimaru rajya’ (sick state). The state was actually in a shambles, with no infrastructure to speak of. Bharti started with construction of new roads and the good work was carried forward first by Babulal Gaur and then by Shivraj Chouhan. Both Gaur and Chauhan can be credited with bringing the state’s economy back on the rails. Now that MP is the fastest growing state in the country with healthy agricultural production to boot, Digvijaya, it appears, finds it hard to digest. Babulal Gaur does not take him too seriously though. “Digvijaya government could never bring about development as we do. He was handling a budget of Rs 750-odd crore, our budget touches Rs 6,000 crore,” he said. Would someone ask Digvijaya to look at his own record? Gir lions and a minor victory They say you win some and you lose some. For a very long time, Shivraj Chauhan and the government he heads have been under the larger-than-life shadow of their Gujarat counterpart, made to look smaller than what they actually are, at least in the party’s scheme of things. Now the chief minister has got even, in a minor way though. When the Supreme Court empowered the Union government to translocate the endangered Asiatic lions from the Gir sanctuary in Gujarat to the Kuno Palpur wildlife sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh, it was a victory of sorts for MP. The Asiatic lion is listed as endangered by International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN), as it exists in a small, isolated population in Gujarat. Official figures say there are only around 400 Asiatic lions left. The Shivraj government in MP had requested the Gujarat government for a few of Gujarat’s lions. But the later, fiercely protective of the lions, had refused to entertain the request, arguing that the Kuno reserve wasn’t suitable for lions as it is also home to tigers, and its weather and environment isn’t conducive for the survival of lions. Both Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh are governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party, but they have long been at loggerheads over the translocation of the Asiatic lions. Narendra Modi’s government lost after passionate resistance to the move, as they called the lions “the pride of Gujarat”. A bench of Justices KS Radhakrishnan and CK Prasad, while maintaining that the survival of these lions was more important than Gujarat’s pride, has given six months’ time to the wildlife authorities to relocating the lions. “The species, which is on the verge of extinction needs a second home,” the apex court ruled in its decision on a public interest litigation filed by an environmental group seeking another home for the lion, unique to India, to Kuno to avoid extinction in case of a calamity or disease. Sources say Shivraj was all smiles after the verdict and Modi sulks. A small victory, one should say but we are reading no political rivalry into it.