Political row erupts in MP after religious event cancellation

Bhopal : A week-long Hindu religious programme in Madhya Pradesh’s Sehore district, the hometown of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, was cancelled due to which the latter has received criticism from the Congress as well as senior BJP leaders.

Since the cancellation of the ‘Rudraksh Mahotsav’, Chouhan, who would often be seen participating in religious events and performing rituals at different occasions, is facing flak.

The development comes after a religious event was organised at Chitavalia Hema village in Sehore district, nearly 50 km from the state capital Bhopal, but the programme which was scheduled for a week, was called off within a few hours on Monday.

The event organised on February 28, a day before Mahashivratri, witnessed a massive footfall which resulted in an 18-hour traffic jam on the Indore-Bhopal highway. A number of VIPs, including State Minister Inder Singh Parmar, were stuck in the traffic congestion.

The hours-long traffic snarls kept the district administration and local police on their toes. Subsequently, godman Pradeep Mishra, who was the ‘katha-vachak’, announced the cancellation of the programme.

“I would urge you all to receive ‘prasad’ (offering) and leave the place and not come again,” Mishra urged the gathering of devotees with teary eyes.

The district administration later said Mishra had informed the local authorities that he was expecting nearly 20,000 people at his katha-vachan programme called ‘Rudraksh Mahotsav’, but nearly one lakh people had gathered.

Sehore District Collector Chandramohan Thakur later in a tweet said there was traffic congestion as more vehicles turned up than expected for the programme organised at Chitavalia Hema village along the Bhopal-Indore highway. He also denied any political pressure behind calling off the programme on Monday.

However, once the programme was cancelled, Congress leaders accused the district administration and the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government of being insensitive to Hindu sentiments.

Congress leaders claimed that the godman was threatened by the district administration to call off the event. Former Chief Minister Kamal Nath, who is the Leader of Opposition in Madhya Pradesh, has appointed a five-member committee (of Congress leaders) to visit Sehore and the organisers of the seven-day Rudraksh Mahotsav.

“This is the first time in the history of Madhya Pradesh that a religious function was stopped under political pressure. This is against ‘Sanatan Dharma’ and religious sentiments have been hurt,” Nath said.

Attacking the state government, Nath said, “A priest had to tell the truth (about the cancellation) to the devotees with tears in his eyes, and nothing can be more shameful for the state than this. This is happening under a government which calls itself religious.”

BJP leaders, too, questioned their own government over the issue. BJP General Secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya wrote a letter to Chouhan, asking him why the Sehore administration had compelled the godman to call off the event and described the administration’s act as criminal.

Senior BJP leader and former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Uma Bharti, too, demanded that both the Chief Minister and Home Minister Narrotam Mishra must launch an investigation into the matter.