By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
“Nero fiddled while Rome burned”, is a catch phrase which many reports are using to address the drama of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, when he sat on a ‘fast until peace’ on Saturday. On surface, this shows the incompetency of Madhya Pradesh administration in addressing and solving the farmers’ issues and also the unwillingness of the government in doing so.
But if one looks deeper, it shows the BJP’s inner chaos which Shivraj is trying to address through his fast.
One ex-Sanghi to row the boat of discontent
Shiv Kumar Sharma aka ‘Kakka ji’ is one of the men who have contributed a lot in establishing the whole farmer movement in Madhya Pradesh. Shiv Kumar was previously associated with Bhartiya Kisaan Sangh (BKS), an organization affiliated with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
While he was in BKS, Shiv Kumar was one of those few men who were very close to the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. In fact, if one looks at the past then Shiv Kumar comes as a man who was the key person who helped Shivraj Singh Chouhan in bagging Madhya Pradesh from Congress in 2004. After Shivraj Singh Chouhan became Chief Minister, Shiv Kumar went back to oversee the works of BKS, but he was still favored by Chouhan.
But in 2010, Shiv Kumar dissociated himself from BKS. It happened after Shiv Kumar led a farmer protest against Shivraj, but Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat stepped and asked to change all the position holders in Sangh and related organizations in Madhya Pradesh. This made Shiv Kumar angry and he resigned from his post of BKS. In the same year, Shiv Kumar founded Rashtriya Kisan Mazdoor Sangh, which is now leading protests in Madhya Pradesh.
But social activists and various farmer rights’ activists tell different stories of Shiv Kumar Sharma’s organization. Amitabh, an activist from Bhopal said, “That is the story which everyone knows. But what many people don’t know that Shivraj Singh Chouhan literally abused and scolded Shiv Kumar Sharma in a meeting and asked him to get out. Even after the Sangh’s disappointment and everything, this move made Kakkaji move out of BKS and become critical of the state government like he is these days.”
Kakkaji has shown his angry face to Madhya Pradesh government and has said that the current ongoing protest in just the first phase of his protest; the second phase may start soon.
But does Kakkaji really want to address farmer voices or is he being played by other political groups? One journalist from Hindi daily Nai Dunia answers the question, “What will Kakkaji do? Now after the firing, Shivraj does not seem to be willing to solve the problem. And also, he is not going to step down. So will Kakkaji become Chief Minister of MP? I don’t think so,” he says.
“Kakkaji has succeeded in doing what BKS was trying to do with this movement. He has hijacked it. Now Madhya Pradesh farmers’ protest has a face, and with this fact Kakkaji is eventually going to help BJP,” added the Journalist.
Malwa and Kailash Vijayvargiya: The next CM of Madhya Pradesh?
A Whatsapp message has started to circulate among journalists countrywide, showing image from a news clip that shows Kailash Vijayvargiya, the national general secretary of Bhartiya Janta Party, as the next possible Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh.
The region of the state which is most affected by the farmers’ protest is the Malwa region and that is the area which is strongly held by Kailash Vijayvargiya. And the activists present at the ground believe that Kailash Vijayvargiya is the one who is trying to get most profit from the recent farmers’ movement. Amitabh said, “There are actually two persons who are working to uproot the Shivraj government in MP, one is Kailash Vijayvargiya and another one is Narendra Singh Tomar, although I’m not so sure about the Tomar. And that is where they are looking towards the Kakkaji, who is now leading the movement.”
Seriousness of this allegation can be understood with the fact that in between all the fast-until-peace-drama of Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Kailash Vijayvargiya went to Indore and met protesting farmers. Kakkaji, who has been critical of the state, was also present at the meeting and he spoke to Vijayvargiya about farmer issues.
The meeting, which was held on Saturday, also saw several farmers namely Mukesh Patwari, Jai Hardiya and few others hailing Kailash Vijayvargiya as future Chief Minister and saying, “Ab aap hi Bhavishya ke mukhymantri ho, aap hi samadhan karo (Now you are our future Chief Minister, you find a way).”
Not only Kailash Vijayvargiya took part in the meeting but also criticised state home minister Bhupendra Singh for denying the Police firing in Mandsaur. In the past too, Kailash Vijayvargiya has been very vocal critic of the state government when it came of corruption.
By presenting a face that loves farmers, Kailash Vijayvargiya is trying to remove roadblocks for Bharatiya Janata Party, excluding Shivraj Singh Chouhan. The party’s central command, except Vijayvargiya, has remained silent on the matter and as Vijayvargiya is the big vocal face of the party in Madhya Pradesh, Chouhan is feeling left out.
Shams-ur Rahman Alavi, a senior journalist based in Bhopal said, “Shivraj Singh is very clever man and he knows how to move media cameras away from the farmers’ protest, which is one reason behind his big show of fasting. Another one is indeed the tussle in the party.”
Alavi says that the whole debate is now not farmer centric. He said, “BJP is very clever in such games. Vijayvargiya is ready since very long, and the recent episodes clearly project how much he is keen to uproot the Chouhan’s regime.”
By doing a 28-hour-long fast drama inside a big dome made in Dussehra Maidan of Bhopal, Shivraj Singh tried to save his government from the eyes of Kailash Vijayvargiya, who is a known close aid of Amit Shah, the national president of BJP.
Activist Amitabh said, “Madhya Pradesh is a failed state and BJP’s now central command favors Vijayvargiya more over Shivraj. That is where the tussle between both the power center starts.” He claims that BJP is trying to take advantage of farmers’ protest and said, “And with all police firing in Mandsaur and Kakkaji hijacking the movement, BJP has moved away the talk from farmers’ demand to incompetency of Shivraj government.”
Many people believe that media is uselessly making hero out of Kakkaji, who is just a tool for BJP. Although it is clear that sharing the stage with and favoring those BJP leaders who have been critical of Chouhan government in MP, Kakkaji has made his message clear that he will certainly play an important role when it comes to changing the Chief Minister of the state.
Amitabh said, “Kakkaji move out from BKS with his supporters. So would you believe that he became socialist or farmer loving guy with a new organization? He is veteran politician and he knows how to play with things. He used all the resources to become face of the organization, and he succeeded. Now he is a bigger problem for Shivraj government, even bigger than the farmers’ demands.”
By the time this report was written, Shivraj Singh Chouhan ended his ‘fast until peace’ based on an unclear instinct. He has announced that he will comply with the farmers’ demands and will provide compensation to those whose properties and vehicles have been vandalised. But with the announcement and the drama, Shivraj has certainly moved the attention from the farmer problem towards himself, and that is going to serve him a momentary relief.