Bhopal, Amid the crisis over the 15-month old Congress government in Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Kamal Nath on Monday took the resigation of all the ministers to woo the 17 MLAs who went incommunicado since morning.
The decision to take the resignation of all the ministers came at the meeting of the party MLAs held at the Chief Minister’s residence on Monday evening.
Speaking to the media, the Chief Minister said, “I would not let those forces succeed which are creating instability with mafia’s help.”
The Chief Minister said that his biggest strength was trust and the love of people of the state. “I won’t let those forces succeed which are creating instability in the government, which has been created by people,” he said.
The Kamal Nath-led Congress government in Madhya Pradesh was left tottering after 10 MLAs, including some ministers, close to former Congress MP from Guna Jyotiraditya Scindia, were on Monday flown to Bengaluru in BJP-ruled Karnataka by a chartered flight.
According to airport sources in Delhi, about 10 persons, including Bankim Silawat, the son of Congress Minister Tulsi Silawat, and Scindia’s close aide Purushottam Parashar, flew from the national capital to Bengaluru in a Falcon 2000 aircraft.
A source said that the chartered flight left from Delhi at 8 a.m. and reached Bengaluru at 10.20 a.m. Asked about who booked the flight, the source refused to share any detail.
Apart from the two close Scindia associates, the other lawmakers were Rajyawardhan Singh, Pradhuman Singh Tomar, Giriraj, Raksha Sinoriya, Jaswant Jatav, Suresh Dhakad, Jajpal Singh and Brijendra Yadav.
“The MLAs were whisked away from the old HAL airport soon after landing to a resort in the suburb of Whitefield,” said a party source in Bengaluru.
The shocker for the Madhya Pradesh government comes on a day when Chief Minister Kamal Nath met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at her residence in New Delhi and briefed her about the current political situation in the state following last week’s attempt to topple the government.
Soon after returning from New Delhi on Monday evening, Kamal Nath was huddled in a meeting with veteran Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and senior Cabinet colleagues at his residence.
The party witnessed a political slugfest over the last few weeks, giving a scare to the state government.
Since Scindia lost in the May 2019 general elections from the Guna Lok Sabha seat last year, he has been trying to become the party’s state unit chief, a post which the Chief Minister continues hold on to, despite this being against the party’s ‘one man, one post’ principle.
A tussle is also underway between Nath and Scindia over the filing of three nominations to the ensuing Rajya Sabha elections on March 26.
Last week, 10 MLAs had gone ‘missing’ but eight of them have returned to the state, the latest being Congress’ Bisahu Lal Singh, who met Kamal Nath in Bhopal on Sunday after returning from Bengaluru.
Two MLAs, Raghuraj Singh Kansana and Hardeep Singh Dang, have still not been traced. Dang had sent his resignation to the Speaker and Kamal Nath.
Meanwhile, three rebel BJP MLAs met Chief Minister Kamal Nath last week. Two of them have openly revolted but the third one, Sanjay Tripathi, has said that he was not leaving the BJP.
