What is Digvijaya Singh's 'apolitical' walkathon by Narmada all about?

Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijaya Singh is preparing to set off on a journey, a Narmada parikrama. Starting on September 30, the 70-year-old Congress leader plans to walk an average 20 km a day to complete a 3,500 km walkathon up and down the river's lengthy course in six months.

Although it comes suspiciously on the heels of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's Narmada Seva Yatra, Digvijaya insists there is nothing political about his plans. "The parikrama is absolutely apolitical...it's a spiritual pursuit for me. I have also written to the party high command to relieve me of all responsibilities so that I can participate in it," he says. It's been a long-standing wish, which he says couldn't materialise till now for a variety of reasons. But now that he has the time, he intends to go ahead.

But unlike other devotees who commence the parikrama from the Narmada's source at Amarkantak, Digvijaya plans to start walking from Jyoteshwar, the ashram of his spiritual guru Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati, on the banks of the river in Narsinghpur district. Apparently, it was the guru who advised him to take the journey.

But the dyed-in-the-wool politician that he is, people are certain there is a political angle to Digvijaya's 'spiritual' enterprise. Assembly elections in MP are due in 2018, and it's being pointed out that his parikrama will end barely six months ahead of polls. Political observers say the Congress leader's journey along the banks would be a handy way to deflate some of the Chouhan government's overstated claims on afforestation, pollution control of the Narmada and prohibition.

Not just this, by the end of his parikrama, Digvijaya would have walked through a territory spanning a hundred of the 230 assembly seats in the state. Way more than what Chouhan touched through his Narmada Seva Yatra.