MP reels as Jogi unfolds nightmare for Digvijay

MP reels as Jogi unfolds nightmare for Digvijay
YOGESH VAJPEYI

BHOPAL, NOVEMBER 21: The fledgling state of Chhattisgarh is already giving Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh a headache. Having successfully installed Ajit Jogi as Chief Minister, following a fiat from the high command, Singh could have hardly anticipated that Jogi would begin thumbing his nose at him from day one.

On his first day in office, Jogi did what many leaders in Digvijay's party had failed to do despite much coaxing, cajoling and lobbying. He announced that he would take back all the daily wage employees sacked by Digvijay. If the Madhya Pradesh CM was taken aback, he didn't show it. In fact, he said the offer had come from him.

And now within a fortnight, Jogi has once again snubbed Digvijay by announcing constitution of the Chhattisgarh State Electricity Board (CSEB). Digvijay had all along been maintaining that the state electricity board, MPSEB and some other organisations would work for both states for at least a year or two, according to sources. ``It's like administering an electric shock to Madhya Pradesh, which is reeling under an unprecedented power crisis,'' observed a senior MP bureaucrat. Digvijay is once again playing it cool, saying that ``Jogi constituted the electricity board with my concurrence.''

But his partymen know better. ``It's not the kind of thanksgiving Singh would have expected from someone who could have never become the CM but for his open support,'' said a senior MP Congressman.

The creation of CSEB -- which will generate 800 MW of power against thestate's demand of 650 MW -- will hit the cash-starved MPSEB hard. Jogi'splan to ``sell the surplus'' power means that the MPSEB will now have to pay up even to maintain its current power supply level, which will now fall much shorter of the demand.

When it got power from its installations in Chhattisgarh ``free'', the MPSEB's daily cash losses were mounting. It's inability to clear its arrears with the National Thermal Power Corporation and the coal companies have pushed it to the verge of collapse.

That Jogi's 20-day-old government means business is obvious. And despite his profession of ``eternal gratefulness'' towards Singh for his role in his election as Leader of the Chhattisgarh Congress Legislature Party against heavy odds, Jogi has no intention of walking in Digvijay's shadow.

Decisions are coming thick and fast and the umblical chord from Chhattisgarh to MP is really under strain. For instance, the Jogi government wasted no time in deciding to disaffiliate all engineering colleges from Bhopal's Rajiv Gandhi Technology University last week when the latter hiked its fees. This had led to an agitation by students in Raipur.

It has also demanded that at least one of the two state guest houses maintained by Madhya Pradesh government should be handed over to it.

The spate of missives from Chhattisgarh Chief Secretary and other seniorofficials to their counterparts in Madhya Pradesh -- till yesterday comrades-in-arms -- also point toward the widening gulf between the two rulingdispensations. Those in Chhattisgarh complain that the new state has not beengiven a fair deal in allocation of men and material.

But this is not all about commitment to the state and fighting over resources. The political significance can hardly be missed. When Jogi announced his willingness to take back all the 4,000-odd daily wage employees sacked by Digvijay early this year, it was a calculated move. Digvijay had all along resisted pressure from his own partymen, including heavyweights like Arjun Singh, Kamal Nath and Madhavrao Scindia, to rescind his controversial decision to sack over 30,000 daily wagers employed by the state government.

A public agitation launched by Ujjain's Congress MLA, Kalpana Parulekar, who had joined the BJP's Uma Bharti, and the subsequent intervention by the Congress high command had failed to bring Singh around. He bought time by agreeing to act as an arbitrator, but after a month of arbitration, he pronounced that the case was not fit for the process, pushing Parulekar on to the warpath once again.

That Jogi should reverse the decision when a delegation of Congressmencalled on him immediately after his swearing-in cannot be without politicalsignificance. And his calculations proved right when senior MP Congressleaders, like Arjun Singh and Kamal Nath, praised him at the cost of Singhduring a recent review of the CM's performance by party chief Sonia Gandhi.

New set of doctors

RAIPUR:A three-year course after the 12th class will now get one a ``doctor's'' degree in Chhattisgarh, and recognition from the Medical Council of India would come easily to these ``degree holders'' after they are allowed to start their practice by the Medical Council of Chhattisgarh. This is Chief Minister Ajit Jogi's latest plan.

Enrolment for the three-year degree course would begin from the next academic session in ``medical colleges'' to be started in the tribal districts of the new state, according to Jogi. He said since no MBBS doctor would like to go to the interiors, a ``new set of doctors'' was needed. -- UNI