The power tussle in Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal, has taken a new turn with five trustees led by Chairman D P Sinha holding a meeting on their own, an act of defiance that could lead to the Madhya Pradesh Government restructuring the trust.

At the meeting held at Bharat Bhavan, Sinha and four trustees of his camp redefined the rules to declare that henceforth the Chairman would decide when and where the meeting of the trust and executive committee will be held and went on to announce that the next meeting would be held in Delhi on October 24.

The 72-year-old retired bureaucrat, who was incharge of the BJP’s culture cell till the present assignment, has stuck his neck out taking on the Government, which wants him out and could use the Sunday meeting to hasten his exit.

An inquiry, which was conducted by the Government last month without hearing him, has already sealed Sinha’s fate. But the Government did not act on it hoping that the playwright would resign on his own ending a dispute that has sullied the image of the prestigious arts complex.

But Sinha seems to be in no mood to relent. At Sunday’s meeting, the Chairman and his four supporters even accepted the resignation of one member and appointed a new one in his place. While the total strength of the trust is 11, meaning that Sunday’s meeting lacked quorum, Sinha’s argument was that the resignation of one brought this down to five members.

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