Or so an environmental group believes. With the tiger population in the state under threat, the Environmental Investigative Agency (EIA) has appealed to Sonia to put pressure on the Madhya Pradesh government to implement existing wildlife protection legislation.

Despite laws to protect the tiger and its habitat, poaching of tigers, and trade in tiger parts and skins is continuing unhampered in the state, said Dave Currey of the EIA.

The tiger was being shamelessly exploited by the self-proclaimed ``tiger state'' Madhya Pradesh in its public relations efforts that has failed the people, the forests and the tigers of the state.

What is worse the forest staff are completely demoralised since the state administration is so lax about safeguarding their lives, now under constant threat from the mafia-like underworldoperating the tiger parts and skins trade.

According to the EIA, since 1992, 37 forest staff have been killed and numerous others have been assaulted while carrying out operations to stop poaching and illegal timber felling.

``Corruption and failed promises by politicians are destroying the tiger habitat. The last of the tigers are being poached to supply an increasing trade in tiger parts products,'' said Debbie Banks from the London-based NGO, who travelled to various tiger project reserves in the state.

In another blatant violation of basic environmental rules, a state-owned diamond mine was pumping thousands of tonnes of effluents into the water bodies that supply the Panna tiger reserve.

Yet another major scam running into billions of rupees occurred some two years ago, when there was a scare that the sal borer, a tree pest, had infected large parts of the natural forests in the state. Over a million trees were identified for felling. But most of these trees were healthy ones. The timber mafiasucceeded in cutting down over 300,000 trees before the operation was stopped.

The EIA has zeroed in on Madhya Pradesh since this is the last major reserve of the tiger. The state is home to over 20 per cent of the world's remaining 7,000 tigers. ``If the tiger is wiped out in Madhya Pradesh, then there will be little hope of their survival elsewhere.''

The growing demand for tiger parts in Japan and the United States, where traders are pushing preparations made of tiger bone as ``miracle cures'' for rheumatism, arthritis and impotency, has raised the stakes and pushed up the prices for tiger parts.

The EIA has also launched a campaign to get international pressure to bear on Japan to make the trade in tiger parts illegal, so that the demand for tiger parts is wiped out at source. While China has legislation making the trade in tiger parts illegal, it is implemented patchily. The US has finally adopted legislation in October 1998 banning the sale of all products labelled as containing tiger.

But fornow, the EIA is concentrating on saving the tiger in its natural habitat, the forests and tiger reserves of Madhya Pradesh. Money is not a problem, they say, but the lack of political will on the part of the state government and the tendency to turn a blind eye to corruption and malpractices.

The environment activist group hopes to meet Sonia, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Environmental Minister Suresh Prabhu to plead the cause of the tiger. But they are pinning their hopes on Sonia. ``If there is anyone who can shake the state government from its lethargy, and implement central laws, it is Sonia Gandhi,'' they said.