Madhya Pradesh: Wildlife and the CM's love for the king cobra

Chief minister Mohan Yadav’s obsession with snakes, particularly the dreaded king cobra, has become a talking point. Yadav has been making forceful statements on the urgent need to re-introduce the king cobra — no longer found in the state — to deal with increasing cases of snakebites. He has said this several times in the past year, and forest department officials are at their wit’s end.

As recently as 18 April, at a forest conservation event in Bhopal, the CM spoke of this again. “Why are reptiles missing from wildlife census? Are reptiles no longer treated as part of wildlife? Or does the Wildlife Act forbid counting them?” he asked.

“Snakes like the king cobra are nature’s own venom police,” he added pointing out that by preying on other venomous reptiles, the deadly snake could help reduce incidents of snakebites. The absence of the king cobra, the chief minister insisted, has driven up snakebite cases. He lamented the neglect of the specie by wildlife initiatives even as receive a lot more attention in the media and drive public policy. Wildlife policies should be more inclusive and cover more species, he argued. “It’s time to shine a spotlight on these silent guardians of the wild,” he said and urged officials to rethink conservation strategies.

Equating the cobra’s aura with that of the tiger, he added, “When tigers move in the jungle, animals begin sounding the alert. Similarly, when a cobra slithers, other snakes flee from their holes, and the king cobra hunts them… since it has vanished, districts like Dindori, where I was minister in charge, have seen up to 200 snakebite deaths annually.”

The department of forest and wildlife has been busy studying how to conduct a ‘snake census’. To begin with, it plans to exhibit two king cobras at Bhopal’s Van Vihar national park.

King cobras, one of the world’s most venomous snakes, are classified as ‘vulnerable’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and are protected under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. India reports among the highest numbers of snakebites. The WHO estimates that between 81,000 and 138,000 deaths occur each year, and snakebite envenoming causes as many as 400,000 amputations and other permanent disabilities.

Many snakebites go unreported, either because victims seek treatment from non-medical sources or do not have access to health care. A study on snakebite deaths and compensation in Madhya Pradesh by Dr Priyanka Kadam, founder of Snakebite Healing and Education Society — a Mumbai-based NGO — found 5,779 snakebite deaths reported between 2020 and 2022. The state government paid Rs 231.16 crore as compensation in this period, awarding Rs 4 lakh for each fatality.

“The state’s climatic conditions are unsuitable for king cobras, which thrive in cooler environments like the Western Ghats,” a senior forest department official said. Dr Gowri Shankar, co-founder of the environmental research NGO Kalinga Foundation in Karnataka, when contacted by the department, described the proposal to re-introduce king cobras as ‘disastrous’. The snakes would not survive in where temperatures can soar to 44ºC in summer.

“While king cobras do prey on other venomous snakes, what if their population grows unchecked and other snake populations decline? At least there is an antidote for other venomous snakes, but there is none for the king cobra. Introducing them is like unleashing a monster into the ecosystem,” Dr Shankar warned, suggesting that forest officials abandon the project. What explains the CM’s push for the ‘king’ remains a mystery though.

Not just a ‘routine’ transfer

When Sanjeev Kumar Sinha, a 2016 batch IPS officer posted as SP of Guna since January 2024, was transferred to police headquarters on 20 April, it followed a pattern.

The past year has seen half-a-dozen IPS officers transferred summarily after they fell foul of Sangh affiliates and ruling party leaders. Rahul Lodha was shunted out of Ratlam last year after he foiled attempts to create disturbances on the occasion of Ganesh Jayanti. Similarly in Indore, DCP Zone-3 Dharmendra Bhadoria was given the marching orders after he ordered the police to disperse activists. It, therefore, did not come as a surprise when Sinha was asked to move.

His mistake was to book a BJP councillor Om Prakash Kushwaha and some other VHP members who had pushed the city to the brink of communal violence. He had delayed booking the men till he had scrutinised CCTV footage. He accused the VHP of taking out a Hanuman Jayanti procession without permission on 12 April, shouting provocative slogans in front of a mosque and pelting stones at the mosque. He also said that CCTV footage did not bear out that there was stone pelting from the mosque.

Officially it was announced as a routine transfer, but no one was buying that. The Opposition raged and warned the chief minister that history would not forgive him. The chief minister and the BJP chose to ignore them.

The transfer effectively put a lid on the role of Kushwaha and the VHP in fomenting trouble. The CCTV footage, said police sources, showed Kushwaha himself throwing stones along with 15–20 other men. They could be heard hurling abuses. They also blocked the roads, obstructed public servants and clashed with the police.

The fact that the illegal procession had stopped in front of a mosque in the Colonelganj area is not disputed. Nor is it disputed that elders of the Muslim community objected to loud music, dancing and DJs around the mosque.

With the media not asking questions or pressing for an answer, the incident is likely to be forgotten soon.

Hotline to God

Usha Thakur, a BJP MLA, is in the news for a bizarre statement. Those who do not vote for the BJP would be re-born as dogs, cats, goats, sheep and camels, she declared in all seriousness at a public gathering.

"भगवान से मेरी सीधी बातचीत है.... अगर भाजपा को वोट नही दिया तो अगले जन्म में कुत्ता, बिल्ली, भेड़, बकरी बनकर पैदा होगे...''

- मप्र भाजपा विधायक उषा ठाकुर pic.twitter.com/Xvkl2lHWi2

— Srinivas BV (@srinivasiyc) April 19, 2025

Lest people harbour any doubts, she added that she has a “direct hotline” to God: “Bhagwan se meri seedhi baat cheet hai.” Ironically, she is the MLA from Mhow, ’s birthplace, and is a former minister of culture. The video of her address at Hasalpur village in her constituency has gone viral. Known for hailing Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin as a patriot and a nationalist, she is a loose cannon for the BJP in the state.