Ram Bilas hogs limelight, but nothing much to show

Pradeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 17

BJP heavyweight Ram Bilas Sharma kept himself in the limelight throughout the past year by his impractical announcements even as there was not much work on the ground in the crucial departments — education, tourism and parliamentary affairs — headed by him. 

His detractors gunned for him for pursuing the RSS agenda in education — manifested in the introduction of Gita “shlokas” and moral science booklets penned by controversial RSS ideologue Dina Nath Batra in the school curriculum, besides yoga — while the indefatigable leader took the criticism in his stride and seemed determined to instil “cultural values” in education.

He announced ambitious schemes for bringing standards of government schools on a par with the private ones. But board examination results of this year, one of the worst in the state’s history, gave the government a reality-check. And Ram Bilas, obviously, blamed the previous Congress government for the results. 

In continuation of the saffron agenda, Ram Bilas, as the Tourism Minister, was instrumental in launching an ambitious Rs 50-crore project to unearth the mythical Saraswati river in the state.

It is as BJP’s “most senior” legislator and Parliamentary Affairs Minister that Ram Bilas had used his legislative acumen and rustic wit with admirable competence to corner the INLD and Congress. 

Most of the time, he might be playing to the gallery(read press) in the Vidhan Sabha, but he never missed a chance to poke fun at the Opposition sometimes not even sparing his own party legislators.

Incidentally, the Assembly had, in March, passed the Haryana Ganvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan Bill to ban cow slaughter and protect cow — a decision he termed as “landmark”.

Another project, which was virtually revived under the minister’s guidance was the excavation of the Indus Valley site of Rakhigarhi. The recent excavations hinted the civilisation was more than 1,000 years older than commonly held belief of 5,000 years.

The formation of first BJP government on October 26, 2014, did not bring much cheer to him as despite leading the party to victory as then state party chief, he was “sidelined” for the top post. Manohar Lal Khattar, first-time MLA and former RSS “pracharak”, was the high command’s choice for the Chief Minister.

He was widely believed to be number 2 in the pecking order in the Khattar ministry, but his wings seemed to have been clipped with important portfolios of Food and Supplies, and Transport subsequently being taken away from him after the Cabinet reshuffle in July.