NEW DELHI: With the Congress fielding former
Madhya Pradesh
(MP) chief minister
Digvijaya Singh from
Bhopal
for the ensuing
Lok Sabha
elections, the veteran leader has started making amends with those he had hurt in the past.
Bhopal is the fortress of the BJP. The party’s ideological parent
RSS has a strong presence there.
The BJP has won all the eight Lok Sabha elections in the last 30 years since 1989.
Besides the strength of the BJP, Bhopal also has a strong presence of government employees.
Being the state capital, it houses about two lakh government employees.
However, Digvijaya Singh had antagonised both the RSS and the government staff as CM of MP for two terms from 1993 to 2003 and even after this period.
But he has started appeasing them now because political expediency demands that of him.
According to Census 2011, while Hindus comprise 69.20 per cent of the population, Muslims constitute 26.28 per cent.
RSSWhile calling himself a devout
Hindu
, Digvijaya Singh has always come down heavily on the RSS and the other Sangh outfits. He has also equated the
Bajrang Dal
with the banned Muslim outfit Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) and demanded ban also on the former.
He has been one of the prominent votaries of the “Hindu terror” theory. His refrain has been that all Hindus arrested for their alleged involvement in terror activities across the country are linked to the RSS.
Digvijaya Singh was seen standing by the side of those alleging that the RSS was behind the Mumbai terror attack on November 26, 2008.
He released a book ‘26/11 RSS Ki Saazish?’ (26/11, An RSS Conspiracy?) first in Delhi on December 6, 2010 (Babri masjid demolition anniversary) and then in Mumbai on December 28, 2010.
Digvijaya Singh used both the platforms to launch attack on radical Hindu groups calling them perpetrators of majority terrorism.
He linked the killing of Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare during the 26/11 terror attacks to the alleged threats the IPS officer had received from Hindu extremists.
However, Karkare’s wife rejected the conspiracy theory stating that he was playing politics with the death of her husband. The Congress distanced itself from Digvijaya’s remarks stating that they were his personal comments.
But on March 27, he did a volte face. He said, “I am a staunch Hindu and RSS is a Hindu outfit. So why does it have ill-feeling towards me. Mujhse kya bair hai?”
Then again on April 2, when MP CM
Kamal Nath withdrew security from RSS’s office at Bhopal, Digvijaya stood behind the organisation.
“Withdrawing security from Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's Bhopal office is not at all proper. I request Chief Minister Kamal Nath to immediately order reinstatement of adequate security,” he tweeted.
By his statement, Digvijaya has sought to undo the ruffled feathers of the RSS and woo the Hindu voters.
Digvijaya Singh has made a similar kind of U-turn in case of government employees.
Government staffIn the run-up to the 2003 assembly polls, he had antagonised the government employees.
Digvijaya, in the fag end of his second term as the MP CM, had rejected the demand of the government staff to increase their dearness allowance and wages.
He rubbed salt to their wound by commenting that elections were won by “poll management and not with the help of state government employees".
During that period, he also sacked 28,000 daily-wage employees in his government, including contractual teachers.
The Congress lost not just in 2003 but also the subsequent elections held in 2008 and 2013.
Besides the two lakh employees just in Bhopal, there are eight lakh throughout the state. Many of them have friends and relatives also in the state capital.
But Digvijaya has got down to appeasing the government staff now.
Mindful of the damage the government employees can cause, Digvijaya apologised to them on March 27. He has also asked them to forgive the "bhool-chook (mistake) 15 years ago".
As Bhopal goes to polls in the sixth phase on May 12, Digvijaya’s fate hangs on the Hindus and the government employees.