There were many factors that led to the lukewarm response to the yatra in the State. The first was that the people were not ready to believe that Advani has given up his Prime Ministerial ambitions and that the main objective of his yatra is to arouse the public against corruption and price rise. Secondly, it was a wrong decision on the part of the BJP leadership to make Ananth Kumar in charge of the yatra. Ananth Kumar belongs to Karnataka—the BJP government of which was involved neck-deep in corruption. If Ananth Kumar could not control corruption in his own state, how can he be expected to combat corruption in the entire country? Moreover, several charges of misuse of his Ministerial position were levelled against Ananth Kumar. The charges related to the period when he was a member of the Vajpayee ministry. Thirdly, on the very first halt of his yatra at Satna, a scandal surfaced over bribing of journalists. Rs 500 currency notes were handed over to every journalist who attended a press conference organised to announce his programme at Satna. To make matters worse for him, the day on which he was in Bhopal, the news of the arrest of former Karnataka chief minister Yeddyurappa came in. This must have definitely shocked Advani.

Advani entry into the State Capital was also ‘welcomed’ by the rise in price of milk by the Sanchi Co-operative Federation—a semi-government body.

Advani’s yatra aimed at increasing awareness on three issues’ black money, corruption and price rise and it seemed to be struggling to cope with the issue of BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections from the moment it entered the state borders.

The problem was aggravated by Uma Bharati’s forecast in Varanasi (UP) about Advani anointment on the top post and Yashwant Sinha’s claim that there were many capable leaders, including himself, for the coveted post. The yatra was greeted by cash-for-coverage scandal immediately after it entered the State.

The cash-for-coverage scandal in Satna left Advani and the party red-faced. It is learnt that the distribution of notes to scribes was caught on camera. And it was none other than a section of journalists who made the scam public. As directed by Advani, the party has already begun a probe into the ugly scandal.

Meanwhile, it is learnt that the decision to give ‘cash gift’ to journalists was taken at a meeting, which was attended by local minister Nagendra Singh and BJP member of Parliament Ganesh Singh. Although both have denied their involvement in the decision but the party immediately suspended the local BJP media in charge Shyam Gupta, thus, indirectly accepting that the party had, indeed, tried to win over the journalists by giving them cash. Advani, when faced with questions about the issue, asked the state BJP chief Prabhat Jha to probe the matter.

A section of the BJP leaders is blaming the media, saying that currency notes were distributed on their demand. Be that as it may, it is apparent that even if the initiative came from the BJP, the media persons should have rejected it. And a section of them did exactly that. They exposed the BJP’s attempt to bribe them.

Massive efforts were made at Bhopal to accord a grand reception to Advani. Arrangements were made at the public meeting venue to accommodate over one lakh persons. But the turnout did not exceed a few thousands. Most of the people who were at the public meeting were brought from outside Bhopal.

Former Chief Minister and senior minister Babulal Gaur was the overall in charge for the Bhopal meeting. It is suspected that groupism might have been responsible for the poor response. Moreover, the savage hike in milk price and the arrest of former Karnataka CM might have dampened the spirits of the locals.

Though Advani addressed several public meetings, his scheduled press conferences at Chhindwara and Hoshangabad were cancelled. The reason given was Advani’s bad throat. Perhaps, Advani wanted to avoid inconvenient questions and so a decision was taken to cancel his press conferences. (IPA)