Bhopal:
Arvind Kejriwal set the trend with his 33-hour protest in the heart of the capital. Kiran Kumar Reddy came to Delhi to hold his "dharna". Nitish Kumar spent five hours on Sunday protesting in Patna. Now, Shivraj Singh Chauhan has threatened a state-wide bandh in Madhya Pradesh.
If Mr Chauhan goes ahead with his bandh, he will be the fourth Chief Minister this year to launch a public protest against the Centre.
The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister wants the Centre to accede to his demand for a Rs 5000-crore relief package for farmers who have suffered massive loss of rabi crop due to unseasonal rain and hailstorms that battered large parts of the state last week.
Mr Chauhan wants the Centre to declare it a "national calamity." He met President Pranab Mukherjee yesterday to request him to intervene.
Today, while on a visit to Vidisha to assess crop damage, Mr Chouhan said, "I will call for a Madhya Pradesh bandh on March 6, if the Centre does not accede to my demand by March 5.'' The BJP leader won a third straight term as chief minister with a thumping majority in the state elections held three months ago.
Only yesterday, Bihar Chief minister Nitish Kumar had led a dharna in Patna against the Centre's refusal to grant the status of special category state to his state.
In January, Arvind Kejriwal, Chief Minister of Delhi for 49 days, sat along with his ministers on an impromptu protest against the Delhi police and the Centre and even spend a cold night sleeping on the roadside. He resigned on February 14, after the Congress and BJP blocked his attempt to pass the anti-graft Jan Lokpal Bill.
Days later, then Andhra Pradesh chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy sat on a 'dharna' at Jantar Mantar to protest against his own party, the Congress' move to bifurcate his state to create the Telangana state. Mr Reddy stepped down as chief minister on February 19 after the Lok Sabha passed the Telangana bill.