Vyapam scam: Undoing of CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan
Shivraj Singh Chouhan looks drained as he slowly walks in to greet us at his Shymla Hills bungalow in Bhopal on Monday evening. The spring in his step is missing. Worry creases his face. The Vyapam scam has begun to take a physical toll on the usually confident and jovial chief minister of Madhya Pradesh. The image of being a development mascot that Shivraj had painstakingly built over the last ten years is gradually coming apart because of the CM's inability to douse the Vyapam fire.
Within the BJP, Shivraj has now been pushed into a corner. Like Sushma Swaraj and Vasundhara Raje he, for the time being, retains his job but his wings have been severely clipped. The Madhya Pradesh CM has never really been seen as a Narendra Modi acolyte. But so far he had been able to exercise complete freedom in the running of his fiefdom because of the massive mandate that he won in the 2013 Assembly elections. But now with the CBI looking over his shoulder, Shivraj's fate is entirely in the hands of the agency's sleuths and their political bosses at the Centre - read Modi.
Sensing weakness, Shivraj's detractors have already drawn their daggers. Former chief minister and present home minister Babu Lal Gaur fired the first salvo when he distanced himself from the sloppy Vyapam probe. Gaur says his ministry was not consulted on any of the key decisions taken by the state government. Speaking to India Today in Bhopal, Gaur said that his view had not been sought before the government decided to not appeal the high court's reprieve to MP governor Ram Naresh Yadav. With these comments, the chief minister's number two, has deftly managed to jump out of the Vyapam firing line leaving his boss facing the bullets on his own.
The most piercing arrow fired at Shivraj, however is the one fired by his one time political guru and now bête noire former chief minister Uma Bharti. Uma unleashed a political storm when during an interview she told India Today that while in Madhya Pradesh she feared for her life. Uma Bharti added that she was being deliberately hounded by the police. When her name first appeared in the Vyapam FIR, Uma had wanted to speak out against the police probe, but at that time she had been restrained by the party president Amit Shah. This week sensing that the iron was hot, she decided to defy the boss' diktat and strike, saying that the chief minister should, as a maryaada purush , follow dharma and hand over the Vyapam investigation to the CBI.
The Congress has repeatedly questioned the BJP Government's refusal in seeking the removal of governor Ram Naresh Yadav whom the STF (special task force) has named as an accused in the Vyapam charge sheet. In the last one year the BJP at the Centre has replaced virtually every Congress-appointed governor across the country. Shivraj not objecting to Yadav's continuance has raised questions about why is he going soft on a governor who is facing such serious charges. The chief minister says he took a compassionate view keeping in mind the deteriorating health of the 86-year-old governor. The governor's health began slipping after his son Shailesh Yadav, also an accused in the Vyapam scam, was found dead in March this year.
Within Madhya Pradesh, the chief minister's political stock has never been lower. Wiped out in the Lok Sabha polls of 2014, the Congress is suddenly smelling blood and trying to land the knock-out punch. The party has called for a state-wide bandh on July 16. Every day protest marches are being organised cities across the state and cries of mama-mami shame shame rents the air. The usually desolate party offices of the Congress, are suddenly brimming with activity. Dispirited party workers sense that the 12-year-long exile from power may finally be coming to an end.
But the Congress' handicap of lacking strong local leadership capable of mounting an effective challenge to Shivraj, persists. The state Congress chief Arun Yadav is a well-meaning but largely ineffective leader with no mass connect so it has been left to the former chief minister Digvijaya Singh to almost single-handedly lead the Vyapam attack. But Digvijaya is also someone who has famously sworn never to return to active state politics in MP. Kamal Nath, the other veteran Congress leader from the state, does not pull much weight outside his home turf in Chindwara. Surprisingly, Jyotiraditya Scindia most likely the Congress claimant to the CM's chair, if and when the Congress dislodges the BJP - is conspicuously low key on the Vyapam issue.
Shivraj's future now depends largely on what the CBI makes of the bona fides of the excel sheet presented by whistle blower Prashant Pandey. Pandey, a cyber expert, was engaged by the Special Task Force of the MP Police to help retrieve the hard disk from Professional Examination Board Controller Nitin Mohindra's computer. Pandey claims the hard disk that he recovered mentions the MP chief minister's name 48 times. Pandey says he was forced to go public when he realised that the STF had altered the original excel sheet and deleted the Chief Minister's name. The BJP alleges that Pandey is a Congress agent and that the CD he is brandishing is false. Pandey claims he has had the CD forensically examined by the privately-run Truth Labs and has received a certificate saying that the CD has not been tampered with.
Pandey has also put out details of an alleged SMS exchange between Shivraj's wife Sadhna Singh and Sudheer Sharma, an accused in the Vyapam scam. In these SMSs the chief minister's wife allegedly forwarded the name of a candidate for selection under Vyapam. The STF has so far dismissed the SMS and call records saying that they have been illegally procured and hence are inadmissible as evidence.
All this time that the Vyapam Probe was being handled by the MP Police the needle of suspicion never really veered towards the CM, but now his fate hangs in balance. If the CBI takes over and finds whistle blower Prashant Pandey's claims to be true, then it would surely mean the end of the road for Shivraj Singh Chouhan.