A group of sadhus rebuffed Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s pre-poll claim that he is the only chief minister to fulfil Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s dream of interlinking rivers. Chouhan recently organised a gala function at the site of the Rs 432-crore Narmada-Kshipra river linking project in the Malwa region. The sadhus had said interlinking holy rivers like Narmada and Kshipra militates against the teachings of Hinduism. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, however, chose to view these objections as a pre-election stunt by the Congress. So, the party also swung into action and readied its own brigade of sadhus to propagate the counter-view that such river-linking actually conforms to the shastras (holy books).
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