Chhattisgarh --- Parliament to be gheraoed on July 25

Chhattisgarh --- Parliament to be gheraoed on July 25
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

BHOPAL, JULY 21: After a near-total bandh in the entire Chhattisgarh region of Madhya Pradesh on Thursday, former Union minister and senior Congress leader Vidya Charan Shukla called for gheraoing of Parliament on July 25 to press for the early formation of a separate Chhattisgarh state.

Shukla said that the people of Chhattisgarh would not be satisfied with merely introduction of the States Reorganisation Bill during the monsoon session of the Parliament. "If the Bill is not passed in the current session, we will be forced to call for an eonomic blockade in the region," he said.

Speaking from Raipur, the Chhattisgarh Rajya Sangharsha Morcha convenor claimed that the response to the bandh call was unprecedented. "For the first time, the bandh was observed in small towns and rural areas also," Shukla said.

Reports reaching Bhopal from different districts state said that though State Government offices functioned normally at district headquarters, schools and commercial establishments in most places remained closed in response to the bandh call.

While BJP leaders described the Morcha's agitation as "a political stunt", the success of the bandh has left Shukla's detractors in Madhya Pradesh Congress somewhat nonplussed.

Members of the Digvijay Singh Government like Satya Narayan Sharma, Rajendra Prasad Shukla and Ravindra Chaube continued to report every hour about the response to the bandh call from their areas on phone. But they avoided reacting to Shukla's call for to gherao Parliament on July 25.

Shukla's move to shift the battlefield to Delhi is now a clear indication of his resolve to convince Congress president Sonia Gandhi that the party would miss a golden opportunity to put the BJP government on the mat if it keeps away from the morcha's agitation. This view gains ground in the backdrop of his show of strength during the Morcha's jail bharo

agitation on June 24. Over 25,000 activists, including a former deputy chief minister and influential Congress MPs like Charan Das Mahant and Surendra Singh, courted arrest.

His detractors even tried to belittle his initiative and rushed to Delhi to complain to Sonia's about Shukla's one-upmanship plans. But they were made to realise Shukla's growing support when a parellel Congress meet organised in Raipur at the instance of Excise Minister Satya Narayan Sharma turned into a free for all.

Shukla is particularly peeved at the manner in which the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee chief Radhakrishan Malviya tried to sabotage his agitation and has accused him of playing in the hands of those partymen unhappy with the creation of the new state.

His supporters point out that Malviya had originally agreed to support the agitation. In fact, a circular issued to the DCCs in Chhattisgarh by MPCC general secretary Manak Agarwal clearly mentioned that the MPCC chief wanted them to join the stir.

Malaviya, however, changed his tune at the eleventh hour and issued a statement from Gwalior on the eve of the June 24 agitation, dissociating the party from the agitation.

Shukla now plans to camp in Delhi and impress upon the high command that the attitude of the party's Madhya Pradesh unit would only harm the prospects of the Congress in the long run.