The tale of the BKU agitation, fondly dubbed Operation Kandela by the outfit leadership, has all ingredients of a celluloid potboiler. A nondescript village and its rustic leaders bringing the state machinery down to its knees over what they believe is theirs by right.At the heart of the script being played out is the BKU’s pugnacious chief Ghasi Ram Nain who has converted Kandela, on the Jind-Chandigarh highway, into the nerve centre of his ‘‘guerrilla war’’ against the Om Prakash Chautala Government.The union leaders have been challenging the authority of the government for the past one month. The village is out of bounds for police and hawk-eyed confidants of Nain stand by.Their deadliest weapon — the innocuous mobile — which helps them closely monitor the unravelling political situation.An array of colleagues, mediapersons and well-wishers in the bureaucracy and political parties update them on government moves by the minute. When the union learnt some leaders were holding talks with the government, they contacted journalists to say that only those nominated by Nain will be authorised to speak. The activists camp in a high-school building on the main road. Their leader Nain holds fort in a double-storeyed house in the village interior while Baljit Singh manages the media from his house on the right side of the road. Baljit is available round the clock over phone.Visiting newsmen are first taken to the media centre and are served cold water, lassi and tea. A dozen activists, including Hisar district unit chief firebrand Billu, sit in the baithak puffing hooka and debating the latest developments.Baljit informs Nain over phone and the journalists are escorted to his presence.In Nain’s camp office, union’s propaganda secretary 80-year-old Phateh Singh Fatwa greets newsmen with anecdotes in chaste Haryanvi. ‘‘Chhoriya ne lege jamai, chhora ne legi unki loogai aur mein union ke kaam ke liye bilkul khali ho gaya (Daughters have been taken by their husbands and sons by their wives, I am free for the union work).’’Nain emerges from the upper-storey room. A big drum is strategically placed to summon villagers within minutes. It is in this village that the union had kept seven cops, including two DSPs, hostage.With the authorities blocking the main road with trees on an one-km stretch, entry to the village is only via Ahiraka and Kharkhedi villages, covering a two-km stretch.
