Power cuts are back to haunt Digvijaya Singh in MP

_{Bhopal: The 'Power Ghost' of 2003 is still haunting former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh. The Congress leader was ousted from power in 2003 Assembly elections after the people had a harrowing time coping with the state government's dawn-to-dusk power cuts.}

_{The 2003 assembly polls were fought only on 'bijli, sadak, pani' (power, roads, water) slogan and Digvijaya lost the battle to BJP after a decade of anti-incumbency worked against him.}

_{Cut to 2019, the same power cuts are back in Madhya Pradesh and the BJP took no time to latch on to the issue and blamed the Congress and Digvijaya Singh, who is contesting from Bhopal Lok Sabha seat this time, for the ordeal. The saffron party's new slogan against the ruling party is 'Congress ayye, bijjli gayee'.}

_{The BJP has organised protests against the power cuts in 16 Lok Sabha constituencies, including Bhopal, that will got to polls on May 12 and May 19.}

_{“The Congress has not only failed in fulfilling promises made to farmers, but the power scenario is very bad in MP. The Kamal Nath-led government failed in maintaining law and order and safety of women,” former Madhya Pradesh chief Shivraj Singh Chouhan said in Hazur, one of the eight assembly segments of Bhopal Lok Sabha seat.}

_{Chouhan also took out a lantern march to protest against the unscheduled power cuts in the state.}

_{The Bhopal Lok Sabha seat is witnessing a fight between a Malegaon bomb blast accused Pragya Thakur and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh.}

_{The Congress, however, is suspecting a conspiracy behind the power cuts. The act of power distribution companies has embarrassed several senior Congress leaders, Lok Sabha candidates, Chief Minister Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh.}

_{In the past few days, several power tripping incidents had embarrassed Nath and Digvijaya.}

_{On April 29, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath, his wife, son and daughter-in-law had turned up to cast ballot at a polling booth in Shikhapur Government School in Chhindwara district around 8 am.}

_{As Nath was waiting for his turn, power went off, causing huge embarassment for the CM.}

_{Taking the matter seriously, officials of the Power Distribution Company lodged a complaint at the Kotwali Police Station.}

_{“A complaint was lodged by Vinita Verma, junior engineer of the Madhya Pradesh Power Distribution Company Ltd against unidentified persons for causing power disruption on Monday morning,” a police officer said.}

_{It took around half-an-hour to restore power supply at the polling booth, a district official said.}

_{Earlier last week, Digvijaya Singh lost his cool when power went off during his speech at a public meeting at Deepadi village in Bhopal.}

_{Upset over this, Digvijaya accused the BJP of sabotage. Continuing his speech, Digvijaya said wherever he goes, power cuts followed.}

_{“This seems to be some deliberate and mischievous act,” he told the gathering, stating that “let us resolve this issue first by asking about the electricity official”.}

_{When a power company employee appeared before him, he asked, “Is there any load-shedding in this area?”}

_{“No Sir”, the officer replied. Not satisfied, Digvijaya asked the official to connect him to his senior officer. The officer then called a senior person and he repeated the same words.}

_{He asked the official if there is no load-shedding then how come power tripping is happening during his public meetings.}

_{The officer replied, “I will probe the matter and get back to you.”}

_{While Digvijaya was having the conversation with the electricity department officials, power supply was restored.}

_{Digvijaya said, “I will file a complaint against the employees.”}

_{The former CM resumed his speech, alleging that the BJP-picked power company is deliberately disrupting power supply to malign the image of state government.}

_{Managing director of MP Power Management Company Ltd Sukhbir Singh confirms, “since there is no shortage of power in the state, there is no question of any unscheduled power cuts.”}

_{A senior official of the company said the demand for power in the state was about 8,100 MW per day and the generation was approximately 8400 MW per day. “So, all consumers, whether commercial or industrial, domestic are supposed to get 24x7 power supply. The agriculture consumers are supposed to get 10 hours power supply every day,” he added.}

_{The recent power tripping incidents have brought back memories 2002-2003. That time, the Digvijay Singh regime had been under attack for the power outage. In the 2003 Assembly elections Congress was ousted from power in Madhya Pradesh on the issues of “bijli, sadak, pani”.}

_{During the ensuing Lok Sabha elections, the BJP leaders have started attributing these power cuts to the “Return of Mr Bantadhar”, a tag attached to Digvijaya Singh to showcase his rule of 10 years from 1993-2003.}

_{"On April 20, the State Government has acted against 387 officers and employees across the state holding them responsible for unscheduled power cuts,” said an official of the secretariat.}

_{The action was taken after Kamal Nath was apprised of frequent complaints against power cuts reported from several parts of the state. Nath had asked the principal secretary (energy) to submit a report and on the basis of it action was taken against employees.}

_{On April 26, while addressing a rally at Sidhi Lok Sabha seat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi took a jibe at the Congress government in MP, saying that the party had promised to reduce the electricity bill ahead of the assembly elections. Instead, the government cut the power supply by half.}

_{Elections to six seats of the 29 LS seats in MP were held on April 29. In next two phases elections will be held on May 12 and 19, and the results will be declared on May 23.}