Coronavirus and Operation 'Lotus'

N D Sharma

Sanchi, the government run milk federation was supplying chemical laced adulterated milk to its consumers The ouster of the Congress government of Kamal Nath in Madhya Pradesh had two bad consequences. The only commendable thing the government had done during its 14- month existence was to launch a relentless "war" against food item adulterators and land mafia.
Many multi-storey buildings were razed to the ground across the State and hundreds of acres of encroached land was recovered by the government. At the same time, the people of the State were horrified (though not horrified enough to rise in collective rebellion against the

Kamal Nath system) to know that the Stateowned Cooperative Dairy Federation had been supplying milk adulterated with urea. The Federation supplies milk and milk products under the brand name of "Sanchi". The adulterators and land-grabbers took a sigh of relief when the government fell. Second, and more disastrous, was the infiltration of coronavirus which could be directly related to the developments leading to the change of government. Kamal Nath – and some others also -- have expressed the view that the Modi government delayed ordering lockdown to fight the coronavirus because he was more interested and involved in toppling the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh. At least in the case of Madhya Pradesh, this definitely appears so.

Jyotiraditya Scindia Coronavirus had entered India by the last week of January. On January 26, a doctor in Jaipur was suspected infected with coronavirus and the State's Health Minister had got him admitted to the hospital. Two days later, a medical student reached Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh from Wuhan in China and he was admitted to a hospital with suspected coronavirus symptoms.
Within a week several persons, mostly medical students having returned from China, were spotted with coronavirus symptoms in various parts of the country: Kerala January 30 and February 2; Dehradun January 30; Indore and Khargone in Madhya Pradesh January 31 and February 2; Orissa January 31; Chhattisgarh February 3; Haryana February 4 and 6. It went on like this.
The virus had become quite pervasive in February. The BJP was said to have started working on disgruntled Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia a few months earlier and the tense relationship between Scindia and Chief Minister Kamal Nath had reached a critical point amidst reports of Scindia's hobnobbing with the BJP leaders. In mid-February (on February 14 to be precise) Scindia accused the Kamal Nath government of not fulfilling the election promises contained in the party's manifesto. He held out the threat that if the government did not fulfil the promises, he would have to take to the streets ("sadak par utarana padega), to which Kamal

Digvijaya Singh Nath responded: "To utar jaayen" (Ok, go ahead). Former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh boarded the Dakshin Express from New Delhi in the night of February 23 and, getting down at Dabra, drove to Guna where, it was said, a closed-door meeting was scheduled between Scindia and him to sort out the differences. But the two met only on the road, exchanged some pleasantries and went their different ways. The expected closed-door meeting between the two did not take place.

Tulsi silawat While the coronavirus was spreading out in Madhya Pradesh – and the country --- the BJP was chalking out its strategy to engineer defection of Congress MLAs loyal to Scindia and bring down the Kamal Nath government. Kamal Nath and his few trusted lieutenants were watching the moves of Scindia and his followers. Governance was kept in abeyance as the politicised bureaucracy of the State was interested more in their future in case of a change of government than in administration. Moreover, Health Minister Tulsi silawat belonged to the Scindia group and almost lost interest in the working of his department.
By the end of February the virus had taken deep roots in the country. The BJP leadership was, however, in no mood to abandon "operation lotus" halfway. According to one version, the top BJP leadership was hoping that with the defection of Scindia and the 20-odd MLAs of his camp, the Congress government would immediately collapse and BJP government would be installed. They did not expect that Kamal Nath would be able to prolong it so much.

Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan with Narottam Mishra The stalemate would have lasted longer but for the unusual interest of the Supreme Court in ordering a trust vote without going into the root cause of the problem if it was all right for the opposition party to keep under its hold a sufficient number of the ruling party MLAs and ask for the trust vote. As the Supreme Court had ordered trust vote proceedings to be completed by 5 PM on March 20, Kamal Nath resigned an hour before the Assembly session was due to commence. With 20-odd MLAs under BJP control in Bengaluru, he had no chance of winning the trust vote.

Narendra Singh Tomar The decision of Kamal Nath to resign without facing the Assembly must have taken BJP by surprise because the party could not immediately push forward a leader to be sworn in as Chief Minister. While former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was a strong contender for the post, the top leadership was reported to be inclined to give the post to Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar. Former Health and Public Relations Minister Narottam Mishra was floating his own name through his friends in the media. In the midst of this tussle, Chouhan invited all BJP MLAs for dinner on March 21. He was, however, made to cancel the dinner by the party high command because of, it was said, coronavirus.
A meeting of the BJP Legislature Party was eventually scheduled for March 24 to elect the leader. The number of the virus-affected people was steadily going up in the country and in Madhya Pradesh.
Then something happened on March 23. Prime Minister Narendra

The prolonged political uncertainty in the State had left the Health Department in a shambles. There was no protective equipment for the health workers and others engaged in containing the virus and no protocol in force. Nearly 80 Health Department personnel, starting from Principal Secretary Pallavi Jain Govil downwards, and dozens of police personnel were infected by the virus. At the time of writing (April 20), Madhya Pradesh accounted for 1485 confirmed cases of Covid- 19 and 76 deaths, Indore being the worst affected with 897 positive cases and 52 deaths.

Modi was said to have asked Chouhan to get immediately sworn in as Chief Minister. Following his talks with the Prime Minister a few times, the Chouhan camp informed media persons that he would take the oath at 7 PM. Later it was made to 9 PM. He was elected leader at the hurriedly called meeting of the BJP legislators (coronavirus notwithstanding) around six PM and was sworn in at Raj Bhavan at 9 PM.
On March 24, he won the trust vote in the (again) hurriedly convened Assembly sitting; the Congress MLAs boycotted it. The same night the Union Government announced the countrywide three-week lockdown.
The number of coronavirus cases in the country had by then reached 519.
The prolonged political uncertainty in the State had left the Health Department in a shambles. There was no protective equipment for the health workers and others engaged in containing the virus and no protocol in force.
Nearly 80 Health Department personnel, starting from Principal Secretary Pallavi Jain Govil downwards, and dozens of police personnel were infected by the virus. At the time of writing (April 20), Madhya Pradesh accounted for 1485 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 76 deaths, Indore being the worst affected with 897 positive cases and 52 deaths.

Vivek Tankha and Kapil Sibal The BJP ousted the Congress government but was not able to constitute a Council of Ministers.
The reason is said to be the party's inability to select from the large number of aspirants.
The 22 ex-Congress MLAs, who had defected to the BJP along with Scindia, have made the c a b i n e t formation more difficult. Scindia, who met Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President J P Nadda in this connection, was said to have insisted on inclusion in the cabinet of all the six ex-MLAs who were members of the Kamal Nath cabinet. The BJP was said to be prepared to adjust only a couple of them for the time being.
As the stalemate continued, the BJP high command constituted what it called the Task Force to aid and advise Chief Minister Chouhan.
State BJP president V D Sharma is the convener of this extra-constitutional body. Its members include Chief Minister Chouhan; Suhas Bhagat, State BJP General Secretary (Organisation), who has been deputed by RSS to the BJP; BJP's National General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya; former State BJP president Rakesh Singh, MP; Gopal Bhargava, who was a minister in the previous Chouhan government and Leader of Opposition during the Congress government of Kamal Nath; Narottam Mishra, Rajendra Shukla, Meena Singh, Tulsi Silawat and Jagdish Devda, all former ministers. Tulsi Silawat was Health Minister in the Kamal Nath government and was one of the 22 Congress MLAs who had gone out of the Congress along with Jyotiraditya Scindhia.
In a surprise development , Chief Minister Chouhan constituted a fivemember cabinet on April 21 -- 29 days after he was sworn in as Chief Minister. Three of them, Narottam Mishra, Kamal Patel and Meena Singh were members of the last Chouhan cabinet. Tulsi Silawat and Govind Rajput belong to Scindia group and were members of Kamal Nath's cabinet. They will have to get elected to the Assembly within six months.
Lawyers and Congress members of Rajya Sabha Kapil Sibal and Vivek Tankha had writted on April 20 a joint letter to the President saying that all the decisions taken by Shivraj Singh Chouhan without a Council of Ministers violated provisions of the Constitution. They had urged the President to intervene so that a Council of Ministers was immediately constituted and the decisions already taken ratified by the Council of Ministers.



		EDITOR'S MAIL EDITOR'S COMMENT PANDEMIC EFFECTS FRANKLY SPEAKING NEW PANDEMIC REALPOLITIK PANDEMIC EFFECTS NEW PANDEMIC NEW PANDEMIC SECURITY SCENE KERALA MADHYA PRADESH J&K SCENE PAKISTAN WATCH SIGNS OF THE TIMES WATER CONSERVATION OPEC CHANDIGARH DIARY HITS & MISSES PANDEMIC EMERGENCY MEDIA SPACE ENGINEERING OUR CONSTITUTION ESSENCE OF THE GITA ART OF LIVING Issue:May' 2020 Subscribe Now	MADHYA PRADESH Coronavirus and Operation 'Lotus' N D Sharma Sanchi, the government run milk federation was supplying chemical laced adulterated milk to its consumers The ouster of the Congress government of Kamal Nath in Madhya Pradesh had two bad consequences. The only commendable thing the government had done during its 14- month existence was to launch a relentless "war" against food item adulterators and land mafia. Many multi-storey buildings were razed to the ground across the State and hundreds of acres of encroached land was recovered by the government. At the same time, the people of the State were horrified (though not horrified enough to rise in collective rebellion against the Kamal Nath system) to know that the Stateowned Cooperative Dairy Federation had been supplying milk adulterated with urea. The Federation supplies milk and milk products under the brand name of "Sanchi". The adulterators and land-grabbers took a sigh of relief when the government fell. Second, and more disastrous, was the infiltration of coronavirus which could be directly related to the developments leading to the change of government. Kamal Nath – and some others also -- have expressed the view that the Modi government delayed ordering lockdown to fight the coronavirus because he was more interested and involved in toppling the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh. At least in the case of Madhya Pradesh, this definitely appears so. Jyotiraditya Scindia Coronavirus had entered India by the last week of January. On January 26, a doctor in Jaipur was suspected infected with coronavirus and the State's Health Minister had got him admitted to the hospital. Two days later, a medical student reached Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh from Wuhan in China and he was admitted to a hospital with suspected coronavirus symptoms. Within a week several persons, mostly medical students having returned from China, were spotted with coronavirus symptoms in various parts of the country: Kerala January 30 and February 2; Dehradun January 30; Indore and Khargone in Madhya Pradesh January 31 and February 2; Orissa January 31; Chhattisgarh February 3; Haryana February 4 and 6. It went on like this. The virus had become quite pervasive in February. The BJP was said to have started working on disgruntled Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia a few months earlier and the tense relationship between Scindia and Chief Minister Kamal Nath had reached a critical point amidst reports of Scindia's hobnobbing with the BJP leaders. In mid-February (on February 14 to be precise) Scindia accused the Kamal Nath government of not fulfilling the election promises contained in the party's manifesto. He held out the threat that if the government did not fulfil the promises, he would have to take to the streets ("sadak par utarana padega), to which Kamal Digvijaya Singh Nath responded: "To utar jaayen" (Ok, go ahead). Former Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh boarded the Dakshin Express from New Delhi in the night of February 23 and, getting down at Dabra, drove to Guna where, it was said, a closed-door meeting was scheduled between Scindia and him to sort out the differences. But the two met only on the road, exchanged some pleasantries and went their different ways. The expected closed-door meeting between the two did not take place. Tulsi silawat While the coronavirus was spreading out in Madhya Pradesh – and the country --- the BJP was chalking out its strategy to engineer defection of Congress MLAs loyal to Scindia and bring down the Kamal Nath government. Kamal Nath and his few trusted lieutenants were watching the moves of Scindia and his followers. Governance was kept in abeyance as the politicised bureaucracy of the State was interested more in their future in case of a change of government than in administration. Moreover, Health Minister Tulsi silawat belonged to the Scindia group and almost lost interest in the working of his department. By the end of February the virus had taken deep roots in the country. The BJP leadership was, however, in no mood to abandon "operation lotus" halfway. According to one version, the top BJP leadership was hoping that with the defection of Scindia and the 20-odd MLAs of his camp, the Congress government would immediately collapse and BJP government would be installed. They did not expect that Kamal Nath would be able to prolong it so much. Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan with Narottam Mishra The stalemate would have lasted longer but for the unusual interest of the Supreme Court in ordering a trust vote without going into the root cause of the problem if it was all right for the opposition party to keep under its hold a sufficient number of the ruling party MLAs and ask for the trust vote. As the Supreme Court had ordered trust vote proceedings to be completed by 5 PM on March 20, Kamal Nath resigned an hour before the Assembly session was due to commence. With 20-odd MLAs under BJP control in Bengaluru, he had no chance of winning the trust vote. Narendra Singh Tomar The decision of Kamal Nath to resign without facing the Assembly must have taken BJP by surprise because the party could not immediately push forward a leader to be sworn in as Chief Minister. While former Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was a strong contender for the post, the top leadership was reported to be inclined to give the post to Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar. Former Health and Public Relations Minister Narottam Mishra was floating his own name through his friends in the media. In the midst of this tussle, Chouhan invited all BJP MLAs for dinner on March 21. He was, however, made to cancel the dinner by the party high command because of, it was said, coronavirus. A meeting of the BJP Legislature Party was eventually scheduled for March 24 to elect the leader. The number of the virus-affected people was steadily going up in the country and in Madhya Pradesh. Then something happened on March 23. Prime Minister Narendra The prolonged political uncertainty in the State had left the Health Department in a shambles. There was no protective equipment for the health workers and others engaged in containing the virus and no protocol in force. Nearly 80 Health Department personnel, starting from Principal Secretary Pallavi Jain Govil downwards, and dozens of police personnel were infected by the virus. At the time of writing (April 20), Madhya Pradesh accounted for 1485 confirmed cases of Covid- 19 and 76 deaths, Indore being the worst affected with 897 positive cases and 52 deaths. Modi was said to have asked Chouhan to get immediately sworn in as Chief Minister. Following his talks with the Prime Minister a few times, the Chouhan camp informed media persons that he would take the oath at 7 PM. Later it was made to 9 PM. He was elected leader at the hurriedly called meeting of the BJP legislators (coronavirus notwithstanding) around six PM and was sworn in at Raj Bhavan at 9 PM. On March 24, he won the trust vote in the (again) hurriedly convened Assembly sitting; the Congress MLAs boycotted it. The same night the Union Government announced the countrywide three-week lockdown. The number of coronavirus cases in the country had by then reached 519. The prolonged political uncertainty in the State had left the Health Department in a shambles. There was no protective equipment for the health workers and others engaged in containing the virus and no protocol in force. Nearly 80 Health Department personnel, starting from Principal Secretary Pallavi Jain Govil downwards, and dozens of police personnel were infected by the virus. At the time of writing (April 20), Madhya Pradesh accounted for 1485 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 76 deaths, Indore being the worst affected with 897 positive cases and 52 deaths. Vivek Tankha and Kapil Sibal The BJP ousted the Congress government but was not able to constitute a Council of Ministers. The reason is said to be the party's inability to select from the large number of aspirants. The 22 ex-Congress MLAs, who had defected to the BJP along with Scindia, have made the c a b i n e t formation more difficult. Scindia, who met Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP President J P Nadda in this connection, was said to have insisted on inclusion in the cabinet of all the six ex-MLAs who were members of the Kamal Nath cabinet. The BJP was said to be prepared to adjust only a couple of them for the time being. As the stalemate continued, the BJP high command constituted what it called the Task Force to aid and advise Chief Minister Chouhan. State BJP president V D Sharma is the convener of this extra-constitutional body. Its members include Chief Minister Chouhan; Suhas Bhagat, State BJP General Secretary (Organisation), who has been deputed by RSS to the BJP; BJP's National General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya; former State BJP president Rakesh Singh, MP; Gopal Bhargava, who was a minister in the previous Chouhan government and Leader of Opposition during the Congress government of Kamal Nath; Narottam Mishra, Rajendra Shukla, Meena Singh, Tulsi Silawat and Jagdish Devda, all former ministers. Tulsi Silawat was Health Minister in the Kamal Nath government and was one of the 22 Congress MLAs who had gone out of the Congress along with Jyotiraditya Scindhia. In a surprise development , Chief Minister Chouhan constituted a fivemember cabinet on April 21 -- 29 days after he was sworn in as Chief Minister. Three of them, Narottam Mishra, Kamal Patel and Meena Singh were members of the last Chouhan cabinet. Tulsi Silawat and Govind Rajput belong to Scindia group and were members of Kamal Nath's cabinet. They will have to get elected to the Assembly within six months. Lawyers and Congress members of Rajya Sabha Kapil Sibal and Vivek Tankha had writted on April 20 a joint letter to the President saying that all the decisions taken by Shivraj Singh Chouhan without a Council of Ministers violated provisions of the Constitution. They had urged the President to intervene so that a Council of Ministers was immediately constituted and the decisions already taken ratified by the Council of Ministers.