A BJP MLA who nine days ago performed puja at the site of a demolished temple here, goaded on by Hindu activists chanting ‘Mandir Yahi Banayenge’, is now Madhya Pradesh’s new Home Minister.

The illegal Sai temple in Char Imli locality, inhabited by bureaucrats and a few ministers, used to cause traffic jams on most days, prompting the administration to flatten it during an early-morning operation on October 24. As tempers ran high, Hindu activists managed to get hold of the deity and re-install it at the same site. BJP MLA Umashankar Gupta was at the forefront of the protest against the administration’s action and performed puja at the disputed site where the deity was kept on a hurriedly constructed platform.

In the Cabinet expansion effected a week later, Gupta got the important Home portfolio and will now get to preside over the state’s law and order situation, including the temple site, now taken over by Hindu activists. The sudden shift in the balance of power has made the administration’s job difficult. Hindu activists have given ‘some time’ to the administration to restore the temple to its original size before they were forced to do so on their own.

Bhopal’s Additional District Magistrate Rajnish Shrivastava said the “temple was an encroachment and will remain an encroachment”. He admitted that a platform has already been constructed and worship of the deity begun, but maintained that “we will not allow reconstruction”.

“They target only Hindu temples. Why don’t they touch illegal Muslim shrines which are abound in Bhopal,”asked Chandrashekhar Tiwari, one of leaders of the protest. On Monday, Tiwari and Gupta walked next to each other in RSS Path Sanchalan (route march) in Bhopal. “It was thanks to Sai Baba’s blessings that Guptaji got the portfolio.”

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