Ajit Yogi--Campaign Trail

Ajit Yogi
Santanu Saraswati
Sarasdangal (Dumka), May 27—He came, he spoke, but he failed to conquer. When the newly-found Chattisgarh, Chief Minister, Ajit Yogi, along with the AICC general secretary, Oscar Fernandez, AICC secretary, Chandan Bagchi, State NSUI general secretary, Alokh Dubey and a gaggle of local leaders visit the local villagers here today afternoon, the former found people unaware of the Congress “wave” all over the country. He started with speaking national, but ended up requesting the villagers to vote for the Congress, saying: “I, too, belong to a very poor tribal family. Its due to Congress, I became the first Chief Minister of Chattisgarh. Its now your turn to strengthen the hands of the party by voting in favor of the Congress.”“The country is in the hands of communal forces. They have not only carried out carnage in Gujarat, killing more than 10,000 innocent lives but also have justified their act. Congress has always favored secular forces. On behalf of the Congress, I am here to strengthen only anti-communal forces in the country.”Using not a single word of attack against the JMM-S chief Shibu Soren, Yogi remained critical about the Government policies at the Centre as well as the State. “In this present scenario, the Congress has a greater role to play for the interest of the nation. We have already urged the anti-communal forces like the Left Parties to unite and rout out the communal forces from the country.”Commenting on the Samata Party’s move to resign from the Babulal Marandi’s Government, Yogi said: “ We won’t comment on this issue. It’s completely their internal matter. But if they want to join the secular forces, they have to quit the National Democratic Alliance first and make a formal appeal to our party high command, Sonia Gandhi. But these are all ‘ifs and buts of politics.”Addressing a gaggle of journalist at Sarasdangal Chowk before leaving for Deoghar, Yogi seemed hypothetical about the statistics of real-Jharkhand politics. He said: “ Our party has a very fair chance of forming next Government at Ranchi. But we are not in a hurry to score over the BJP by going through horse-trading. Let them fall first. We will decide afterwards. There are hundreds of option and we would work out one from it.”But what surprises the Chattisgarh Chief Minister just before boarding the hired helicopter, is that—when he asked an octogenarian Manjhi Tudu after addressing a motley crowd of few hundreds: “Whom do you vote?”--“Baba ko. (To our father).--“Who is your Baba?”--“Shibu Soren. Humlogo ka Gurujee.”He did not delayed for a single second and his helicopter’s wings started whirring. EOM.
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