The BJP government wants to rename  Bhopal as Bhojpal amidst protest. After spending crores to glorify the image of Raja Bhoj, a Parmar king born 1000 years back, Shivraj Singh Chauhan is defending his decision saying there is nothing wrong in celebrating such occasions. But people question his priorities.

Last week, Bhopal was  all decked—specially illuminated for the occasion of 1,000 years of Raja Bhoj’s coronation. A huge  statue of the king was unveiled in the presence of BJP leader Venkiah Naidu followed by  glittering celebrations violating all the rules and regulations. Bollywood singer Sukhvinder and percussionist  Shivmani performed. Star of yesteryears  Kabir Bedi anchored the show. The celebrations went on till 1 am when loud music is not allowed in the state capital after 10 pm. All the illumination was done by power-theft as the power connection was taken directly from the supply line. The state aeroplane made 8 visits to Delhi for picking up and dropping  Venkiah Naidu and Nitin Gadkari. And all this at the expense of tax payer’s money. Even after creating so much hype and hoopla , the government has not initiated any step to rename the city.

Now all this is being done when the state is mourning farmers death…more than 20 farmers committed suicide and a dozen more attempted the extreme step due to crop failure. It had been happening in the neighbouring UP, Maharashtra and also the Andhra Pradesh, but it’s a new phenomenon for MP. And as politics started on the issue, Shivraj announced compensation. And when the government  started disbursing  it, it turned out to be another tragedy for the farmers as the cheques  were of meager sum from  Rrs 400 to 40,000 only. In many cases, the amount did not even reach the actual beneficiaries.

Though Shivraj claims to be a farmer and a messiah of the poor, he failed miserably to understand the actual reason of the suicide cases. Majority of the farmers who took the extreme step of killing themselves  were the farmers who were doing  contract farming  known as atia –batia kee kheti. They were landless farmers and cultivated the land that belongs to someone else who live in urban or periurban centres in region and share the profit with the farmers. A large number of compensation cheques were sent  to these land-owners. Cheques were even made in the names of some top bureaucrats who own land near Bhopal!

However, a week later, when the people are still wondering over the cause of celebrations. The chief minister has not even  initiated the process to rename the city to Bhojpal. Forget about the city, not even a road has been named after  Raja Bhoj. After all, what is in name ?