Ajit Jogi

New Delhi, July 21: Former chief minister Ajit Jogi, one of the few frontline Congress leaders left in Chhattisgarh since a Maoist attack wiped out nearly the entire top brass, may not be able to contest the state elections later this year.

The Raman Singh-led BJP government is set to make public a report that says the Congress leader is not a tribal and possesses a fake caste certificate.

Jogi, whose entire politics rests on his social status as a tribal, has considerable clout among voters in the tribal-dominated state.

While the report would surely stop him contesting from his traditional seat, Marwahi, a constituency reserved for tribals, the legal implications of alleged forgery could further ruin Jogi’s fading political career.

Sources said the government was planning to make the report public in the middle of the election process, denying Jogi adequate time to seek relief from the Supreme Court.

A senior government source in Chhattisgarh told The Telegraph the vigilance report was ready but would be announced “only at the right time”.

The report, the source confirmed, had found Jogi’s caste certificate “to be suspect”.

The state government had set up a high-level, quasi-judicial body to look into Jogi’s caste certificate on a directive from the Supreme Court, which had found evidence on his caste inconclusive while dismissing a petition a few years ago.

“The Supreme Court gave a time limit of two months for this vigilance report,” Jogi said, asked about the impending report.

“What was the government doing for the last two years? I have not been asked by this committee for my response, but I know the first committee gave a favourable report,” he said.

The former chief minister had been writing to the government to speed up the inquiry as he feared trouble just ahead of the Assembly elections. The report was finally submitted in April.

Jogi’s aides said they were aware of the BJP’s plan to get him embroiled in a legal mesh just before the elections to neutralise the only real challenge left after the assassination of the frontline Congress leaders in the May 25 Maoist attack. Jogi’s tribal status has long been in dispute despite the fact that he cleared engineering, IPS and IAS exams where he would have specified what caste he belongs to. Earlier, too, people have challenged his claim in court, alleging that he was a Dalit.

The sources said the latest probe report suggests that land and other records do not support Jogi’s claim.

The land Jogi owns now belonged to one Ramai Chamar, a member of a Scheduled Caste, and the report concluded that the family inherited it, the sources said.

Jogi claims his father Kashi Prakash Jogi bought the land in 1933 and the sale deed was with him.

He says if it was an ancestral property, his brothers and sisters, too, would have got their share.

Earlier inquiries into land and revenue records and people’s testimonies in his village, Sarbahra, and grandfather Dularwa’s village, Jogisar, and educational documents suggested he was a Kanwar, a tribal.

Whatever be the truth, the politics surrounding this controversy is bound to have a far-reaching impact on the next round of Assembly elections in November-December, which could indicate the mood of the nation before the general election in 2014.

The Congress hopes to wrest Chhattisgarh from the BJP to keep the balance as Madhya Pradesh looks difficult. Retaining Delhi and Rajasthan is a formidable task.

Jogi, who is at odds with the party high command, will receive a debilitating blow if it is declared that he is not a tribal.

There were reports that some parties were approaching him to explore the possibility of his disassociation with the Congress but the new situation may snatch the will to fight, a quality Jogi demonstrated after an accident that confined him to a wheelchair.