Choubey

Patna, May 9: He is health minister of the state, but no doctor has been able to find a cure for his foot-in-the-mouth disease.

Ashwini Choubey has put his party in a hole by publicly proclaiming Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as the future Prime Minister. The claim wouldn’t have raised eyebrows but for the fact that Choubey’s boss in government, Nitish Kumar, prefers to keep Modi at arm’s length, never mind the occasional handshake for sake of courtesy.

The statement has left a section of the BJP squirming though the minister has been defiant. Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi has sought to distance the party from Choubey’s remarks, which have come at a time when the NDA allies in the state are battling niggles in their relationship.

This is not the first time that the over 6-foot tall, strongly built minister has put the government in a spot. But as sources pointed out, he does it with alarming regularity and gets away with it. Sources pointed out that Choubey, 57, seldom attends Nitish Kumar’s weekly janata darbar, even when health-related issues are being discussed, though the chief minister has made it mandatory for his ministerial colleagues to be present.

Even during Nitish’s first tenure, Choubey, then the urban development minister and MLA from Bhagalpur — the site of the worst-ever communal riots in Independent India — openly opposed the cabinet decision to allot land to the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) at Kishenganj in March 2010. “The government should not resort to haste in opening the AMU. All sections of the society should be consulted on the issue of the AMU,” he had then said.

Activists of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the BJP, carried out a violent demonstration against the proposed AMU on March 29, 2010, compelling police to use canes on them. An infuriated Choubey had asked the police to explain the circumstances in which they used lathis against the “most disciplined students’ wing of the RSS”. The ABVP cadres demonstrated against the AMU in Patna on February 6 this year also.

In November last year, Choubey, a Kanyakubj Brahmin from Bhagalpur who loves to sport angvastram — a trademark Sangh parivar attire — declared the restoration of the salary of 144 doctors of medical colleges across the state who had been found absent from duty. But the minister’s largesse did not work as the health department insisted on cracking the whip and slashed the salaries of truant doctors.

Choubey is also known to make promises and announcements which seldom see light of day. For example, on December 1 last year, observed as AIDS Day, he had announced reservation in jobs for HIV-positive patients. But his announcement failed to take off as providing reservation in jobs involves a larger constitutional decision. The government looked the other way.

Similarly on November 11, 2011, Choubey announced a bouquet of gifts for babies born at 11.11am that day — 11.11.11.

The minister, who was in Darbhanga that day, had announced that the government would gift the newborns special health cards that will ensure their free medical treatment in all government hospitals till they are 18 years of age. Also, he announced that girls born at 11.11am that day would be given free education by the government besides financial assistance for their marriage for which a new programme, called Chief Minister’s Girl Marriage Scheme, would be formulated.

Needless to say, little has come of those grandiose announcements. “His announcement became history on the day he made it,” a doctor said, tongue firmly in cheek.

As urban development minister in NDA-1, Choubey named a children’s park near the Gandhi Maidan here after the BJP ideologue Deendayal Upadhyay though Nitish had already declared it as Peer Ali Park. He had also famously promised to turn Patna into Paris.

But in spite of all this, Choubey has held important posts in government. Sources said what keeps him afloat is the clout he pulls within the Brahmin-dominated lobby of the RSS. Choubey has been an undeclared spokesman of Sangh parivar’s Hindutva philosophy all through. A prominent activist during the JP movement, he was also among the worst sufferers of the Emergency. The police had tortured him by keeping him on an ice slab in the chilly winter and beating him mercilessly. He had stayed behind bars for months fighting the Emergency.

Choubey became the BJP legislature party leader for a brief period when Sushil Modi was elected to the Lok Sabha in 2004 from Bhagalpur. But Modi, till then his closest friend from the ABVP days, resigned his Lok Sabha seat to become deputy chief minister. Choubey turned Modi’s undeclared rival within the BJP after the latter took over the BJP’s legislature party and got close to Nitish.

Modi has succeeded in reining in the likes of Rameshwar Chourasia and Tarakant Jha. But Modi has so far not found way to rein in his old friend who, incidentally, had cleared the examination to get admitted to the MBBS course at BHU. Modi had then accompanied Choubey to get him admitted but the candidate reported late.

Choubey failed to become a doctor. But he has become a minister of doctors. Only if they could find a cure for his foot-in-mouth disease.