Way to go to jail, Uma

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal"><script language="javascript">doweshowbellyad=0; </script><br />NEW DELHI: It’s a little different from when you and I land up in gaol. Uma Bharti, wrapped snugly in the Tricolour that she has now appropriated, is a special jailbird.<br /></div> <div align="left" style="position:relative; left: -2"><table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" align="left" border="1" width="32.1%"> <colgroup> <col width="100.0%" /> </colgroup> <tr valign="top"> <td width="100.0%" colspan="1" rowspan="1" style="" valign:="" top="" background-color:="" white=""> <div class="Normal"><img src="/photo/828453.cms" alt="/photo/828453.cms" border="0" /></div> </td> </tr> </table></div> <div class="Normal">One day of incarceration for the former chief minister and several states are already in the throes of protest.<br /><br />A former Union minister Ananth Kumar was taken into preventive custody.The Karnataka BJP promises protests everyday. In Uttar Pradesh, the party is already getting ready for a local Tiranga Yatra. There has been a bandh in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. And there are 13 more days left of Uma’s judicial custody! <br /><br />Perish those images of hard toil and hard beds. Uma has a bad back so jail for the sanyasin is a cushy joint – the Dharwad agricultural university guest house. With oceans of supporters outside for moral support, if any is needed. And the services of personal attendants and such like.<br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Next Page: </span><a href="/articleshow/msid-828449,curpg-2.cms">Uma ready for an indefinite stay</a><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section2"><div class="Normal">The facilities better be good. Uma, says a close confidante, intends to be there as long as the courts see fit to keep her. “She will not seek bail, so it could be an infinite situation if the judicial remand is extended,� he said.<br /><br />For the records, the irrepressible BJP leader is not shedding any tears for the loss of chief ministership. BJP leaders close to her admit the fickle former Union minister was getting a trifle “bored� with her Madhya Pradesh assignment and is glad for the little Congress gift that has her back in the thick of things. This is what she loves – drama amid adulation, firmly at centerstage.<br /><br />The next few days will see important BJP leaders take turns to visit her in “jail�. Party president Venkaiah Naidu is scheduled to visit one day, former Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani another and so on. <br /><br />Meanwhile, the Congress can go cry itself hoarse – as the beleaguered Karnataka chief minister Dharam Singh now is – that the Hubli case against Uma is not really about unfurling the Tricolour. The die is cast and the canny Uma has run away with this round of political one-upmanship.<br /><br /><span style="" font-weight:="" bold="">Next Page: </span><a href="/articleshow/msid-828449,curpg-3.cms">Tiranga Uma rahe hamara</a><br /><br /></div> </div><div class="section3"><div class="Normal">So when does she leave on her much-touted Tiranga Yatra? Well, as soon as she is set free. Then she plans to journey from Hubli to Jallianwallah Bagh in Amritsar in the name of the Tricolour that she said had been slighted under the reign of a “foreign woman� – read Sonia Gandhi. Much like it was “under the foreign rule of the British.� <br /><br />For the last few days, Uma has scarcely been spotted without the Indian flag – move over Naveen Jindal. And her supporters are roaring for more. <br /><br />If her journey from Bhopal to Hubli to surrender was any indication, her yatra will be anything but uneventful. For that matter, her stay in jail too.</div> </div>