Power trips Sonia visit to Digvijay land

As Sonia Gandhi ended her two-day visit to Madhya Pradesh, the power crises continued to dominate the agenda. From Congress workers to media...

As Sonia Gandhi ended her two-day visit to Madhya Pradesh, the power crises continued to dominate the agenda. From Congress workers to media, whom she evaded in good measure, and villagers she met on her way to Katni by road, everyone wanted to talk about the power cuts. And realising the seriousness of the situation, Sonia varied her speech to admit: ‘‘I know there are some problems you all are facing’’.

However, the onus was on CM Digvijay Singh, still smarting from yesterday’s humiliation of being hooted down in Dabra, to assuage public anger and convince Sonia that the state was doing all it could.

Congressmen, who lined up to meet Sonia yesterday, wanted to know why Chhattisgarh was not offering help. In fact, the power situation is being compared to the onion disaster that had hit the BJP and had worked to Digvijay’s advantage.

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Before leaving for Katni yesterday, Sonia was scheduled to address the media. However, as journalists waited for Sonia, Digvijay walked in and began talking of the power situation. He said the newly-announced power cuts at night will not last longer than 15 days. He confirmed the MPSEB chief was forced to resign after ‘‘he refused to follow Cabinet orders to split the burden of power cuts between towns and villages’’. He admitted there was considerable resentment that could work against the party.

Sonia, after being advised that addressing the media may not be the wisest course, ducked the press conference and was ushered into a waiting vehicle by Digvijay. On power, all she said to the media was: ‘‘Work has already started on the roads and efforts will be underway on other fronts also’’. When asked of Arjun Singh’s broadside, Sonia said she would not prefer to say anything. On her way to Katni, Sonia’s motorcade stopped several times for her to interact with villagers, an event strictly off-limits for the media. She was met by sarpanches of villages allied to the Congress.

These sarpanches informed Sonia that despite the power cuts, the village was getting 15 hours of supply. The fact that the meeting was stage managed was confirmed when other villagers told journalists and said: ‘‘We were not allowed to speak in her presence. These men are powerful, they fixed everything.’’ They said they didn’t have power for more than three to four hours a day.

At the meeting, silent crowds greeted Digvijay instead of the previous evening’s hooting. After listing projects in the pipeline, Digvijay concluded by stating the problem would be addressed by 2007, to an audible gasp from a stunned audience. Sonia did get a better response but her claim that the 15 Congress-ruled states were better administered than the Centre or any other states is going to come up for a real test when MP votes later this year.