Shivraj Singh Chauhan's is perhaps the most wayward government Madhya Pradesh has had. His cabinet colleagues are fighting against each other through the media; the secretaries are disobeying their ministers and the ministers are publicly criticising the behaviour of their secretaries. A large part of the State is reeling under the drought conditions and the people in several parts don't have potable water to drink. The State government had not been able to utilise the Central assistance and the amounts to the tune of several thousand crores of rupees lapsed with the close of the financial year. The government had not been able to even use the budgetary provisions it had made itself.

        There seems to be no accountability in any of the departments. The malefactors have the field day, with the members of the law enforcement agencies dancing to the tune of the Hindutva rag-tags. When a man in a Christian family dies and the wife prepares for his burial according to their custom, the Hindutva activists mob the house and tell the aggrieved wife that the deceased was a Hindu and his body should only be consigned to the flames; they refuse to accept the documents the wife produces to show that they indeed are Christians.  The incharge of the local police station, who intervenes to ensure that the wife should perform the last rites of her late husband according to their own religious belief, is taken off the field duty and attached to the lines. A senior police official writes to (female) counsellors at the Family Counselling Centres in police stations to ask them if they do indulge in flesh trade. As there is uproar, the official comes out with a facetious explanation that he had received an anonymous complaint that the counsellors were involved in flesh trade.

          That is Madhya Pradesh on the eve of the Assembly elections, providing a highly fertile ground to opposition parties to endear themselves to the people by taking up their grievances in a vigorous manner and assuring them, convincingly, of their intention to restore at least a semblance of democratic functioning in various apparatuses of the government if they were given the chance in the November elections. However, the Congress, the main opposition party, had not yet been able to recover from the shock it had received with the defeat of its candidate in the Betul Lok Sabha by-election. It appears to have gone comatose after the party's drubbing in the Karnataka Assembly elections. The other parties, too, have suddenly become tongue-tied.

          One hears only the clamour of the BJP leaders. It has become a bit louder after the Karnataka result. Chauhan promised to redress the grievances of various categories of government employees and then started the stupendous task of transfers and postings according to their anticipated usefulness six months hence. That is essentially within his realm and the other parties can do little about it. What, however, must be worrying both the Congress and the BSP, is the latter's 'social engineering' which the BJP, especially Chauhan, has started practising with boundless zeal.

          Take, for instance, the Brahman factor.

           Shivraj Singh Chauhan, on the other hand, got himself felicitated by Rajya Stareeya Sakal Yuva Brahman Mahasangh or State level federation of all Brahman youths (an organisation of which one had never heard before) for promising development of Janapav, supposed to be the birth place of Parashuram, near Indore, at a cost of Rs 11 crore. The Mahasangh may be an obscure entity but Parashuram has of late become the symbol of aggressive Brahmanism in the Hindi heartland. (According to the Puranas, Parashuram was a Brahman leader who had relentlessly fought against the tyranny of the Kshatriya kings and was credited with having cleared the earth of the Kshatriyas 21 times and handed over their kingdoms to the Brahmans). Though the organisers had called it a function to felicitate the chief minister (Abhinandan Samaroha), the chief minister himself described it as the Aashirvad Samaroha (the function to bless the chief minister). Supremacy of the Brahmans established!

          The BJP has Rajput leaders in important positions in the government as well as the organisation. The national president of the BJP is a Rajput and the chief minister is maintaining excellent rapport with him by reportedly keeping his family members in good humour. He has chalked out a plan for houseless slum dwellers, which he plans to execute from July 1. He has promised a new scheme, in addition to the existing ones, to help the tribals and develop the tribal areas speedily. The commission, which was appointed to make recommendations for helping the poor belonging to the general categories (read upper castes), has already submitted its report. The chief minister has asked the departments to list the facilities already being made available to these categories. Then the remaining recommendations of the commission will be examined and implemented (hopefully, just before the active electioneering starts). Chauhan has promised a "solid initiative" for granting to the forest dwellers and tribals right over the forestland. He has also promised a social security scheme to the landless agricultural labourers.

          The Bundelkhand region of the State has been facing acute drought conditions. The chief minister has not been able to ensure drinking water supply there or do anything to reduce the acuteness of the people's distress. His government has, however, asked the people not to worry as the government has prepared Rs 31-crore schemes to turn Bundelkhand into the Punjab of Madhya Pradesh. Are the opposition leaders listening?