Bullett Raja in time off Chhattisgarh’s hot seat

There had been initial anxiety because of the buzz that people wanted change after his two terms in power. But the opinion and exit polls have put paid to those — or so it seems. “We are very upbeat,confident. There is no reason why people would vote for the Congress,” says son Abhishek Singh.

The officers on special duty and secretaries who have been with Singh for nearly a decade are also gung-ho. “If we are confident,they will naturally be. They reflect our mood,” chuckles Abhishek,an XLRI,Jamshedpur,post-graduate.

After the breaks they took outside the state,the CM and his family were mostly at home all of last week,relaxing over extended meals. “We have been watching movies,comic serials,especially Comedy Nights With Kapil,” says Abhishek.

Grinning,Singh complains jokingly about the questions directed at his son. “Ab purane logon se kyon miloge (Why will you meet old people now)?”

More seriously,he is aware of the distance he has travelled since the time he badly lost an Assembly poll from hometown Kawardha in 1998 and got a second wind with a surprise Lok Sabha ticket a year later. The call from the BJP in 2003 to take over as Chhattisgarh CM was equally sudden. He was at the time more known as an Ayurvedic doctor,and living quietly in Delhi.

“You can’t deny what has been decided for you,” Singh says. “When I lost the 1998 election,people said it was all over for you. I was given a Lok Sabha ticket,people said you will lose. But I won and was made a minister. In 2003,Atalji (Atal Bihari Vajpayee) asked me to come here. People again said I was committing a big mistake by leaving Central politics. But see….”

Abhishek was preparing for CAT in Pune when his father became the CM. He remembers that when he came to the CM house for the first time,the guards wouldn’t let him in. Around the 2008 polls though,he joined politics and has been assisting his father. This year Abhishek and mother Veena Singh campaigned in Singh’s constituency Rajnandgaon.

Veena’s other passion is their kitchen garden,apart from the seven-eight cows that can be seen resting in a shed. The family only has cow milk as Veena finds it healthy. Her love for cows,she says,began after she brought a blind one home years ago.

On December 6 noon,the CM house hosted a cricket match after around three years. Singh and Abhishek are decent players. The CM is a left-handed batsman and a quality spinner. He plays badminton and volleyball too,and used to be a good swimmer. “He doesn’t get time these days. But he does yoga regularly and walks a lot,” Abhishek says.

Both the yoga sessions and the walks have been longer given the the free time Singh has these days. There is no getting around the phone calls though,especially from Delhi. Awaiting some sadhus from Andhra Pradesh who will soon arrive to wish him a third win,he tells one caller: “Don’t worry,sab control hai yahaan (everything is under control).”