ndsharma's blog

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is a glib talker. He conveniently refuses reference to his past lest the people should make demands. Recently his Government has released full page advertisements in several Madhya Pradesh newspapers saying what his Government has done in the state in the past three years. Three years!! Yes, what he claims. The period before three years he wants the people to forget — and not remember 700 and odd promises he had made to the people of the State.

This is an old trick of Chouhan. Like “1984” (a novel) of George Orwell, where a person became “unperson” when his memory was erased from the records and mention of his name became a crime. A similar feat, in real life, was performed by the BJP top brass by making the BJP rule as “unBJP” rule. The occasion was the celebration of Gaurav Divas on the completion of five years of Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s BJP government in Madhya Pradesh on November 29,2005.The people remember the BJP having come to power in Madhya Pradesh on December 8, 2003 with Uma Bharti as the Chief Minister. After she resigned in the wake of a criminal case against her in a Hubli court, Babulal Gaur became Chief Minister on August 23, 2004. A year or so later Gaur was suddenly asked to resign and Chouhan was sworn in as Chief Minister on November 29, 2005. All the top leaders, Nitin Gadkari, Lal Krishna Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar, Venkaiah Naidu and Rajnath Singh, were present on different occasions and addressed the bash without mentioning the earlier Chief Ministers.  Does it mean that the party high command recognised only five years of the BJP rule and considered the December 2003-November 2005 period as the ‘unBJP’ rule, George Orwell style? In bashes held periodically during December 2003-November 2005 the BJP rule was “unmentioned”.

Chouhan planned an “investors’ meet” soon after becoming the Chief Minister with a view to (as he publicly claimed) inviting the industrialists from India and abroad to invest in Madhya Pradesh. He is not the man to worry about the futility of such meets (in the absence of infrastructure and proper atmosphere in the State). He is happy so long as such exercises keep him, and his favourite bureaucrats, “occupied” at home and occasionally abroad at public expense, away from the drudgeries of the day-to-day problems.

Then Leader of Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly  the late Jamuna Devi had computed that the BJP Government had signed, since 2005, as many as 21 MoUs but only two of the signatories had taken some interest in exploring the feasibility of setting up their industries in the State. The investors’ meets, sometimes called the NRIs meet, or the global investors meet or the buyer-seller meet, have been held at different places in the State, including Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur and Khajuraho (the last has been the venue of several such meets). The official delegations led by the Chief Minister had during this period been to several countries.

Chouhan extracted promises of investments worth lakhs of crores of rupees. His delegation spent a whole day signing MoUs with prospective investors, from India and abroad, at Khajuraho; the areas covered were power, textile, food processing, information technology, education, and bio-fuel. Later he announced that the number of the investors present at the three-day meet easily gave the idea that Madhya Pradesh was becoming a priority State for investment for the large number of Indians settled abroad. He had boasted that Madhya Pradesh would soon leave the “allegedly” investor-friendly States like Karnataka, Rajasthan, Bihar and even Gujarat far behind in the matter of investment. (The State had received proposals at the Khajuraho meet worth Rs 39, 334 crore).
Some time later MoUs worth Rs 88,018 crore were signed at Gwalior, mainly in the fields of industry, energy, food processing, information technology and higher education. Chouhan had given to Indore meet the name of global investors meet and the MoUs worth Rs 61,900 crore were signed there. Almost the same has been the story of every investors’ (or NRIs’ or buyer-sellers’) meet on which the State Government had been spending huge amounts. (Who says Sheikh Chilli is a fictional character?)

Some more of Chouhan’s unfulfilled promises include:  A bai would no more be called bai, but only ‘behen’ if she was younger in age or ‘didi’ if she was older. The bais will be issued photo identity cards and the Government will spend up to Rs 20,000 on treatment of a bai if she falls ill; this facility will be extended to her husband, son, daughter, mother-in-law, father-in-law and widowed or deserted daughter also.Free textbooks to their children up to the 12th class, in addition to monthly cash payment to the children. A bai will be entitled to 45 days’ maternity leave and the Government will pay her wages during this period. Besides, her husband will be entitled to 15 days’ paternity leave and the Government will pay his wages also. The bai will be paid Rs 1000 in cash for nutritious diet during maternity.  

The Chief Minister announced six week’s maternity leave to women and two weeks’ paternity leave to men working as agricultural labourers (their wages to be paid by the Government). Several other promises, similar to those for dais, were also made for agricultural labourers. Chouhan’s other promises include review and revision of labour laws, among other things, to help the industrialists; take initiatives for the education and economic and social rehabilitation of the disabled; 11 schemes for the poor belonging to the general category; His Government intended to use the modern techniques for increasing fish production; If a fisherman fell ill, the Government would spend on his treatment Rs 30,000 —- even more if necessary: special budget for women on the pattern of dalits and dais; As many as 35 promises he made for welfare of the kisans. Many many more promises for making the State “ideal” in the country.All that he now wants the people to forget this.