Chandrakant Shukla
It was Thursday morning around 11.30 am… I had just reached the office and was turning on my computer when my mobile rang… it was an unknown number so I was thinking of ignoring it… but again. The call came from the same number. I reluctantly received the call and said hello. The voice coming from the front was that of an elderly lady. He took my name and asked… You are speaking Chandrakant Shukla… I said with some caution… Yes… I am speaking… What he said next… was surprising to me. She says, you people are writing about many names regarding the next Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh… Why don’t you write to make OP Choudhary the Chief Minister? When I tried to say something in clarification, he immediately cut me off and what he said was shocking for me. She started saying that it seems that even journalists do not want someone who is educated and wants the welfare of the state and the youth to become the Chief Minister. For about five minutes, she kept explaining to me, sometimes in frequent English and sometimes in pure Hindi in a serious manner, why OP Choudhary should be the next Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh.
During this time she kept rejecting all my arguments. I said that he is still young and many leaders senior to him have won elections. How will they be able to handle senior leaders? OP has been an IAS officer. Many senior IAS officers are handling the administrative system of the state and they may feel awkward. But she kept singing praises of OP. She kept saying that this should reach Modi ji that the people here want to see OP as the CM. The seriousness in her words made me feel that she must be retired as a principal or professor from some college or high school. I also asked her… have you ever met OP? So she clearly said… No… I have not met her… but have seen her videos. He has a lot of knowledge about farming. When he talks to the youth, they listen to him with fascination. I have heard a lot about him from the children at home too.
His arguments were so solid that I was speechless. After losing, I had to promise her that, okay ma’am… today I will definitely write about OP. When I started writing as promised, his words kept coming to my mind… and I wrote it all down.
Anyway, this is an incident which I had to face today. But since December 3, everyone in Chhattisgarh is asking only one question… Who is becoming the Chief Minister? Then he himself is heard giving the answer… OP should be made. This is not the condition of only the youth… whether it is women, whether it is the elderly… OP is on everyone’s lips. In the last few days, who will become the Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh? Also watched many videos on YouTube. In some videos, someone is asking the youth and in some videos, a person like a journalist is going to a village and asking the villagers… Every other person is heard taking only one name… OP… OP should be made.
