E-Paper
Shuklas have common rival
The Shukla family is being torn apart by the coming elections.
The Shukla family is being torn apart by the coming elections.
Shyama Charan and Vidya Charan are on opposite sides of the political divide. But they have one common enemy, Ajit Jogi, who was injured in a road accident last Sunday .
Shyama Charan, a long-time Congressman and thrice chief minister of Madhya Pradesh was at loggerheads with Ajit Jogi, who was made the first chief minister of Chhattisgarh.
Shyama Charan’s antagonism towards Jogi stems from the fact that the wily ‘tribal’ Ajit Jogi was instrumental in ensuring the defeat of his son, Amitesh Shukla from Rajim in Raipur district.
The other reason was the caste divide. Shyama Charan is a Brahmin.
V.C. Shukla’s grouse was that Jogi was made chief minister. As a result, he quit the Congress to join the Nationalist Congress Party. This proved to be the undoing of Jogi.
Jogi later vowed to take the revenge. Though he is undergoing treatment in a Mumbai hospital, his election managers have turned the heat on in Mahasamund on Vidya Charan.
It is survival time for Shukla and Ajit Jogi. For Vidya Charan, 76, it will be probably his last elections and a chance to keep intact his clout in the new state.
Jogi too has a point to prove after the Congress’s debacle in Chhattisgarh in the recent Assembly elections and the cash-for-legislator scandal.
