While the finer points of legality of the Governor's action will take time to be decided, its immediate political fallout may be disastrous for the beleaguered chief minister.

B R Yadav and Rajendra Kumar Singh are the two former ministers now facing prosecution in the land scam case. About three decades ago, the State Government had acquired the said land and entrusted it to the Indore Development Authority (IDA). However, Yadav, who was Minister of Housing and Environment from December 1993 to December 1995, agree to the release of the land to its original owners.

Singh, who succeeded Yadav as Minister of Housing and Environment, not only stayed Yadav's order but also directed the department to examine whether the order was passed in public interest. Interestingly, he too changed hismind and ordered, in September 1997, release of 7.5 acres of the land to its original owners at roughly one-third of the price that the government had paid.

The Lokayukta collected sufficient evidence that Yadav and Singh had acted illegally in connivance with R D Ahirwar, then additional secretary in the department, and M B Mutha, law officer with the IDA. The matter was then handed over to the Special Police Establishment (SPE) which, after its own investigation, filed the case in the designated court.

The government order releasing the land was subsequently cancelled. Yadav and Singh, who were dropped from the Cabinet in May this year, kept mum following Digvijay Singh's assurance that he would shield them from prosecution. The Governor's action has however, shown that he cannot.

This is not the first time that the Governor has done something to put the Chief Minister in an embarrassing situation. Bhai Mahavir has constantly been talking about the ``bad law and order situation'' in the State andregularly seeking reports from the government on the unsolved cases of heinous crimes which the police are reluctant to follow up because of political pressure.

The Governor has also taken the government to task on several appointments made to please certain politicians ``in violation of the law''. The Chief Minister was trying to take all these things in his stride observing in private talks that nothing else could be expected of a ``BJP activist''.

Digvijay Singh's entire authority has been eroded. The Lokayukta, who is a former Supreme Court judge, had written to the Governor to accord sanction for prosecution of the two former ministers and had explained at length that the Governor himself is the competent authority to accord the sanction in this case.

For reasons best known to him, Bhai Mahavir forwarded this letter to the Chief Minister who promptly convened a Cabinet meeting which equally promptly, and unanimously, rejected the prayer for sanction to prosecute the two former ministers. TheCabinet's decision was conveyed to the Governor who overruled the Cabinet decision and passed on September 23 a two-page order according sanction.

While returning the file to the Chief Minister with his order, the Governor also sent a copy of his order to the Lokayukta office and the SPE took no time to submit it to the designated court where the case is pending. The State Government's request to the Governor to reconsider his decision is, therefore, only of academic value now. It was after this order that the Chief Minister spoke, for the first time, critically of the Governor in public.

The development seems to have upset his electoral applecart too. B R Yadav, hailing from Bilaspur district of the Chhattisgarh region, was originally an Arjun Singh man. Digvijay Singh had used him against the hegemony of the Shukla brothers during the violent agitation at Bilaspur over the proposed bifurcation of the Bilaspur railway division some three years ago.

Rajendra Kumar Singh is a brother-in-law of ArjunSingh and Digvijay Singh had used him to check Arjun Singh in the Vindhya region. But with the present scenario the two may not be of much use to Digvijay Singh in the November Assembly elections.