Express News Service
BHOPAL: Considered India’s cleanest city, Indore is now set to emerge as the model of the state government’s crackdown against the land mafia in the central Indian state.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister who was in the city on Tuesday evening for a series of events announced that the crackdown against the land mafia in Indore will be used as a model across the entire state.
“I congratulate the entire administrative and police machinery of Indore, including the commissioner, collector, IG and SP. Don’t worry, I’m the CM, destroy the entire mafia, none should be spared. On Wednesday, there is a conference of commissioners, collectors, IGs and SPs from across the state. You (Indore district collector) have to give a five-minute presentation, how Indore has wiped out the entire mafia. Indore will turn the model for the entire state. I assure all people of the state that all those who’ve been victims of exploitation and injustice in the previous regime (the erstwhile Congress regime) will be rendered justice now,” said Chouhan, who is set to complete the first year of his fourth tenure as MP CM in around two weeks.
Addressing a gathering of beneficiaries of 1000 housing societies, who will get back their land which was squatted by the land mafia, the CM used his old Tiger Abhi Zinda Hai remark to draw home his point about the crackdown against mafia elements. “I had said that Tiger is alive and the tiger is on the hunt for prey. The tiger is hunting for the land mafia, agents of chit fund companies, drug mafia and those troubling the women and girls in the state,” said Chouhan.
Importantly, after losing power to Congress in December 2018, Chouhan — the tallest BJP leader in MP — had taken a cue from Salman Khan-starrer 2017 Bollywood flick Tiger Zinda Hai, to say Tiger Abhi Zinda Hai for assuring the people that he would take care of their interests, despite being out of power.
On Tuesday, the MP CM didn’t only use his old slogan of Tiger Abhi Zinda Hai to aggressively posture to people of state’s largest and country’s cleanest city Indore, but also took cue from the presently trending social media catchline
“Ye Mai Hoon” to reiterate his resolve of cracking down against mafia. “Ye mai hoon, ye meri sarkar hai, ye meri prashasnik team hai aur aap dekhoo mafia bhaag rahein hain (This is me, this is my government, this is my administrative team and you yourself can see the land mafia is fleeing),” Chouhan said.
Just a few weeks back, the CM had started his aggressive posturing against mafia elements, particularly the land mafia in the state, by announcing from the stage of a public event that he won’t spare the mafia, but bury them 10 ft deep under the ground, if they didn’t flee from the state.
Importantly, Chouhan’s repeated focus on the crackdown against mafia across the state is being seen among political quarters as a well-calculated strategy to make it the prime poll plank in the coming local urban body polls, whose dates are likely to be announced soon by the State Election Commission.
Making light of CM’s aggressive posturing in Indore on Tuesday evening, state Congress spokesperson Narendra Saluja (who hails from Indore only) tweeted, “barring one or two land sharks, no mafia elements are fleeing the state. During the previous BJP regimes that spanned for 15 years, it was the BJP leaders only, who patronised and protected the mafia elements. Whatever action is being publicised by the CM now is merely confined to small fishes, as the big crocodiles are still ruling the roost.”