Has CM's wife bought currency counting machine?

Why would Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan's wife, Sadhna Singh, who was chairperson of a recent yoga camp, purchase a sophisticated currency counting machine from New Delhi? The state, which has a long history of chief ministers with fiscal agendas, is in a tizzy.

By N D Sharma

The reported purchase of a sophisticated currency-counting machine by Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan's wife, Sadhna Singh, from a New Delhi shop, has evoked some animated gossip in political circles in the state capital, Bhopal. The report of the purchase first emerged in some of the state's newspapers prior to a five-day yoga camp organised in the city by the controversial Baba Ramdev in mid-February. As things stand, the neither the chief minister nor his wife has chosen to negate, or even challenge, the allegations.

As chairperson of the camp's organising committee, Sadhna Singh is said to have collected a sizeable sum for the event. Passes for participating in Ramdev's camp were priced at Rs 500, Rs 1,100 and more.

The collection of money, for whatever cause, good or questionable, appears to have become a major preoccupation of chief ministers (and ministers) in Madhya Pradesh. Sunderlal Patwa, who was chief minister in 1990-1992, was said to have been the most diligent. Workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were, by and large, unhappy during Patwa's regime because he had appropriated the power to transfer government employees. This was especially galling because BJP workers had, for some time, been getting their sustenance from recommending transfers; it was a calling that had gained an almost cottage industry status during Arjun Singh's first term in the early 1980s.

Digvijay Singh, who followed Patwa as chief minister, was a contrast: he believed in the decentralisation of powers and “lobbying” to such an extent that he defended with all his might ministers and officials who faced allegations of corruption. A junior member of his cabinet, who held charge of the animal husbandry department, once wrote to him about the questionable practices of some senior officials in his department and requested action against them. Digvijay Singh promptly dropped the junior minister from his cabinet.

A party worker once approached Digvijay Singh seeking money for “party work”. The party worker was then said to have recommended the transfers of two junior engineers and collected Rs 50,000 from each. Public Works Department Minister Hazarilal Raghuvanshi, whom the opposition was pillorying for having made a bundle, was, in fact, meticulously recording in a register the names of those who were transferred and where and on whose recommendation.

Uma Bharati is a more complex character. She is a sannyasin who is supposed to have renounced worldly comforts and desires. But even her elder brother, Swami Prasad Lodhi, had once accused her advisers and members of her cabinet of indulging in rampant corruption. Although there were no reports of her having personally squirreled away money, it was well known that a couple of her advisors went the whole hog during her brief but tumultuous regime.

Septuagenarian Babulal Gaur, who succeeded Uma Bharati as chief minister, was often in the news, though not in connection with the collection of money: he has always been known for his discretion in matters of fund collection. An industrial unit at Mandideep was said to have once sent money to Gaur “towards his election fund”. Gaur, said the industrial unit's representative who had carried the cash, remained true to character and returned most of the money on the ground that it wouldn't do to take so much from just one unit.

On the other hand, as minister of local self-government in Patwa's government, Gaur had allowed some builders (including one of his close relatives) to construct and demolish roundabouts several times over in Bhopal city.

Shivraj Singh Chauhanfell like a stone into the hands of powerbrokers, mostly builders and constructors. The builder lobby is so powerful that it is said that the lists of posts and transfers of senior officials were being prepared at the residence of a builder, who would then send the lists to Chauhan for his imprimatur. (The only parallel gamer to the builder lobby is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.) Is this why Sadhna Singh found the need for a sophisticated currency counting machine?