Uma Bharti’s not going to forget this birthday celebration for a long, long time. While the BJP leader has clammed up after offering a heart-shaped cake, complete with lit candles, at the Jam Sanvli Hanuman Mandir on Hanuman Jayanti, Chief Minister Digvijay Singh and his men, who have to take on Uma’s brigade in the state polls, are out to make the most of the cake. And probably eat it too. Stung by the criticism over the cake-offering, Uma wrote to Digvijay and demanded a CBI probe into the whole issue. And now, a local daily known for its Congress-tilt, has gone to town with a story headlined ‘‘Betul mein bane cake mein anda tha (there was egg in the cake baked in Betul).’’ Accompanying it is a picture which shows Uma offering a cake at the temple. According to the newspaper, Badriprasad Verma, an office-bearer of the Betul District Congress Committee, released an affidavit signed by a Betul bus-stand hotel owner, stating that men in a white Qualis, sporting scarves with Jai Shri Ram scrawled all over, came to the hotel on April 16 morning — the day Uma offered the cake — and asked for an eggless cake. But they eventually settled for one made of eggs and left saying they were headed for the Jam Sanvli temple. The newspaper notes that there’s no confirmation that the cake offered by Uma was the same bought at Betul. But the headline and the accompanying picture leave very little doubt in the reader’s mind. To add to the controversy, another newspaper has knocked off a logo of Uma on the Sankalp Yatra Rath and replaced it with that of a candle-lit cake before Hanuman. The wording’s terse: Cake Kaand. The newspaper reports that Digvijay, while visiting Ujjain’s Mahakaal temple yesterday, remarked to a mahant that these days ‘‘new practices were being introduced in pooja.’’ There’s more in the report: On being told that these practices were ‘‘inappropriate,’’ Digvijay asked the mahant and the assembled gathering to guard against such practices. In turn, the mahant said he would write to Uma and advise her to avoid such practices. Needless to say, Uma’s incensed. At a press conference in Bina, Uma said Digvijay had ‘‘managed’’ the media. As ‘‘proof,’’ she said the media chose to shut out an incident involving Digvijay when he, after landing late for a mahayagya at Sumer in Raisen, was chased away by an angry crowd. The Cake Kaand is inviting a lot of media comment. One article welcomed the cake offering on Hanuman Jayanti as ‘‘an example of the openness and accommodative spirit of Hinduism’’ while another said ‘‘advocates of cultural nationalism, who talk of one nation and one culture which allows for only one right way, can hardly be allowed to get away by guising it as openness.’’ In the midst of all this, it’s clear that Digvijay is not going to let this issue rest. A reply to Uma’s letter, calling for a CBI inquiry, awaits his signature. There are already reports that Digvijay plans to seek the opinion of state BJP leaders on the request for a CBI probe into the controversy. Wonder what they expect the CBI to do? Probably taste the cake to start the investigation.
