New Delhi: A day after the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh alleged that the BJP was trying to ‘destabilise’ it by bribing representatives, eight MLAs apparently arrived at a hotel in Gurgaon. The Congress has managed to convince four MLAs to exit while the others remain inside, according to reports.
The Kamal Nath government has a slender majority in the 231 member house, with 114 MLAs. The saffron party has 104 MLAs, while there are two MLAs from the Bahujan Samaj Party, one from the Samajwadi Party and four independent MLAs. All the MLAs who are not from the BJP have extended support to the government.
Early on Wednesday, Madhya Pradesh’s higher education minister Jitu Patwari told news agency PTI that senior BJP leaders such as former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, former ministers Narottam Mishra, Bhupendra Singh and Rampal Singh “forcibly” took eight MLAs to a hotel in Haryana “as part of a conspiracy”.
“The MLAs told us that they were forcibly confined by the BJP leaders,” he alleged. NDTV reported one Congress leader as saying that the Haryana government, helmed by the BJP, is using its police force to contain the MLAs within the hotel.
Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath. Photo: PTI
One of the MLAs who has exited the hotel near Manesar is Ramabai, who has been suspended from the BSP. Madhya Pradesh ministers Patwari and Jaivardhan Singh were seen leaving the hotel with Ramabai and her bags.
“We are trying to bring them back. Four of them have come back also but they have forcibly taken away tribal MLA Bisahulal Singh,” Pawari said.
According to media reports, Digvijay and his minister son Jaivardhan Singh also reached the Haryana hotel to meet the MLAs. On Monday, Digvijay Singh said in New Delhi that his party’s MLAs were being offered “huge amount of money” by BJP leaders, accusing the saffron party’ of “poaching”.
The BJP dismissed the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister’s claim, with Chouhan accusing Singh of making ‘false statements and engaging in sensationalism’.
Madhya Pradesh’s BJP chief V.D. Sharma also brushed aside allegations that the Congress’s MLAs were being held at the hotel in Gurgaon by the BJP. He said the “internal tussle” between Kamal Nath, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Digvijaya Singh would destabilise the government.
Kamal Nath has in the past also accused the BJP of trying to destabilise his government. In the aftermath of the MP CM’s nephew Ratul Puri’s arrest, a Congress Rajya Sabha leader had told The Wire that it was an effort to destabilise “opposition governments through such harassment”. “Old files have been dusted out wantonly to effect the arrest,” he said.
In Chhattisgarh, also a Congress ruled state, many of chief minister Bhupesh Baghel’s close associates and advisors have been raided recently using central forces. This prompted the CM to write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, describing the actions as “an affront to cooperative federalism”.
Describing the raids as an “intriguing coincidence”, he noted that the his government has recently decided to investigate allegations of corruption against the state’s former BJP chief minister Raman Singh.