Bumpy Road ahead for flip flop Uma Bharati | N.D.Sharma

Published on 05-12-2007 In National

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Bumpy Road ahead for flip flop Uma Bharati

Gujarat has dashed – at least, for the time being -- Uma Bharati's last hope of getting back into the mainstream politics. Her position has become untenable even in her own Bharatiya Jana Shakti (BJS) owing to her constant flip-flop. Snubbed by her most ardent supporter, Prahlad Patel, the sadhvi went into a sulk at Onkareshwar, a holy place in the Malwa region of Madhya Pradesh. (A former Union minister, Patel was the first to join Uma Bharati in her fight against the BJP leadership for the "injustice" done to her and is the only important figure who has still remained with her).

Knowing fully well the BJP's high stakes in the Gujarat Assembly elections, Uma Bharati first announced her determination to defeat the BJP there. She changed her tack following an "advice" from her spiritual guru Visveshtiratha Swami of Pejavaradhokshaja Mutt to work for consolidation of the Hindutva forces and declared that the BJP everywhere was devoid of principles except in Gujarat and Chief Minister Narendra Modi was her elder brother.

The urgency with which she had responded to the guru's appeal for unity was not there in the response of the BJP leaders. Still, expecting a "welcome back" message from the BJP leadership any time, she announced in the morning at Sagar that she would be leaving for Delhi in the evening. As the message did not come till evening, she boarded the Gujarat-bound train from Bhopal, instead of the one going to Delhi.

In an apparent bid to make herself acceptable to the BJP, she appealed to her party candidates to withdraw from the contest but was shouted down by them. The appeal of another religious leader, Asaram Bapu, with whom she had spent considerable time at Vadodara, also did not help. The face-off with Prahlad Patel came a couple of days later when she asked her candidates at Khargone and Sanver in Madhya Pradesh to step down and Patel put his foot down and firmly said "No". (By-elections for Khargone Lok Sabha and Sanver Assembly constituencies are slated for December 12). Patel also told her that he would campaign in support of the BJS candidates in Gujarat even if she did not.

The effrontery she faced from her supporters at Vadodara and the subsequent use of harsh language by Prahlad Patel about her unpredictable behaviour must have come as a rude shock to Uma Bharati. She has in her nature the impetuosity of a spoilt brat. Her actions are not always logical and she takes indulgence of others for granted. She often decides on the spur of the moment and wants others to obey her without a question. She does not care how illogical her decision is or how much inconvenience it causes to others.

As chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, she once attended a late night function in Bhopal. As her entourage was going back to her residence after the function, she suddenly asked the driver of her car to stop and take her, instead, to Hoshangabad for a midnight bath in the holy river Narmada.

One can imagine the problems this created for the chief minister's security staff.

The 90-km stretch from Bhopal to Hoshangabad passes through Raisen and Sehore districts. So, the Collectors and SPs of Raisen, Sehore and Hoshangabad had to be alerted in the dead of the night.

The problem did not end there. The female members of the Chief Minister's security outfit were reportedly not expert swimmers. The male members were, but they were wary of lurching too close to the Sadhvi as she entered the mighty waters of the river Narmada at that odd hour. For obvious reasons.

It had been a tortuous two years for the sadhvi after her expulsion from the BJP. A victim of her megalomania, she had thought that the BJP would collapse when she walked out of the BJP Legislature Party meeting, where Shivraj Singh Chauhan, and not she, was elected the leader to replace Babulal Gaur, and launched her Bhopal to Ayodhya Ram-Roti yatra. The tremendous response she had received during the 2003 Assembly election campaign had gone to her head and she had little realised that the entire BJP was behind her (even former chief minister Sunderlal Patwa who has an inexplicable aversion for her) during the campaign. Then there was the people's resentment with the ten-year misrule of Digvijay Singh.

With her youthful, smiling face and the garb of a sanyasin, she drew large crowds, particularly of the youth and women, as she traversed through the interior of Madhya Pradesh on her Bhopal to Ayodhya Ram-Roti yatra. They came to have her darshan and touch her feet rather than hear her harangues against the BJP leaders for denying her the Chief Minister's post, which she considered as her right. She did not spare even Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani. She even wondered if she was wrong in resigning as chief minister to appear in a Hubli court. The media followed her for several days, keeping her constantly in focus.

While making angry outbursts against the BJP leaders, she continued to nurse the hope that they would call her back. Accordingly, she continued to extend deadlines for a reply from the BJP leadership. It did not come. Soon the crowds started thinning out and the media also gave her up. Of the 100 and odd BJP MLAs, who she had always claimed were with her, only five had followed her.

Then came another disaster. Her candidates lost in all the by-elections held in Madhya Pradesh. More disgraceful was the defeat of her candidate in Bada-Malehra which is her own constituency. (The by-election was caused by her resignation from the Assembly). Her party's performance in the Punjab and Uttarakhand Assembly elections was also unimpressive.

Gujarat was her last hope to bargain her re-entry into the BJP. It has been spoilt by her impulsiveness. If the 54 BJS candidates in Gujarat are able to make a substantial dent into the BJP vote, it will not add to her bargaining power with the BJP as she had repeatedly appealed to them to withdraw. If they fail to put up an impressive show, it will hasten the disintegration of her Bharatiya Jana Shakti, which she had founded 19 months ago. The road that lies ahead for the sadhvi is bumpy.

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