TACKLING TEETHING TROUBLES

A NOBODY PITCHFORKED INTO THE HOT SEAT AS CM, BHAJAN LAL SHARMA HAS BORNE THE BAPTISM BY FIRE WITH NO RANCOUR. NOW, HE'S SLOWLY EVOLVING HIS POLICY SIGNATURE: SENSIBLE, BALANCED AND NOT WITHOUT THE BIG IDEA

- ROHIT PARIHAR

A political life has a way of bringing a measure to things. If not in a starkly spartan way, Bhajan Lal Sharma retains that good country feel to his daily rhythms: up at sunrise, a brief stroll in the sprawling lawns where the two cows he keeps are always indulged with a spot of patrician patting, and then a busy day interspersed with simple, home-cooked vegetarian meals. A calendar bustling with meetings means he often ends up skipping or delaying-his early dinner. His demeanour, though, is not devoid of rosy reminders of his carefree, younger days when he was fond of eating-he even won a bet once by consuming over two dozen laddoos at a wedding feast without any water in between. In December 2023, no one would have grudged him a few extra sweets when his name was called out, tambola-style, in the game of chance that decided Rajasthan's chief ministership. He was nowhere in the race: a first-time legislator, he was being pitchforked from nearanonymity to high office. But from that moment of elation, it didn't take long to appreciate how much of a "doubleedged sword" politics can be, as Sharma confesses ruefully to INDIA TODAY.

The agony came when the BJP lost 11 of the state's 25 seats in the general election. Sharma can't mask the hurt still, but offers no excuses. Aides say his body language for days after June 4 suggested he took it as a personal failure. Even if he had no say in candidate selection or campaign design, he felt he had let down the party that had elevated him to a much-sought-after office. Clearly, life would have been simpler when he was just a humble apparatchik back in Bharatpur district, where being sarpanch of his village, Atari, was the last administrative office he had held.