Bhopal: Hours after Congress leaders accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of forcefully confining eight MLAs of the party and allies, six of them returned to Bhopal on Wednesday evening. The MLAs were allegedly confined in a hotel at Manesar (Haryana), where State ministers Jaivardhan Singh and Jitu Patwari accompanied by senior party leader Digvijay Singh had reached after midnight. They were not allowed to meet the legislators, but they managed to meet BSP MLA Rambai and took her with them.
The crisis of the Congress government does not seem over. Since, BJP is apparently seen calm, it is believed that the BJP leaders might be chalking out plan B. In the meantime, the Congress leaders have alleged that four of their MLAs are still missing.
These six legislators of Congress, BSP, SP and independents accompanied by two ministers, soon after reaching Bhopal, reached Chief Minister’s residence in the evening. Those who returned are- Congress’ Aidal Singh Kansana, Kamlesh Jatav and Ranveer Jatav, BSP’s Janjeev Kushwaha and Rambai, while SP’s Rajesh Shukla.
Those still missing are – Surendra Shera, Bisahulal Singh, Hardeep Singh Dang and Raghuraj Kansana. The ruling party engaged in damage control since late Tuesday night exhibited confidence while the opposition BJP switched to denial mode over horse trading charges.
‘Whistleblower’ of the horse trading controversy, senior Congress leaders Digvijay Singh appeared before the media on Wednesday said there is no threat to Kamal Nath government. He added that CM Kamal Nath would speak to the media later in the day.
He again mounted charges on former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan saying Chouhan had hired two chartered planes to ferry MLAs out of Madhya Pradesh. According to Singh, four MLAs were taken to Bengaluru.
Interestingly, the Scindia camp ministers did not reach CM House. However one of them, Pradyumn Singh Tomar speaking to the media extended support to state government but did not answer as why certain ministers were not seen at CM House.
Scindia earlier had pleaded ignorance about horse trading episode as the media had questioned him on this in Gwalior. Other senior ministers of Kamal Nath including Govind Singh and Sajjan Singh Verma also claimed there was no threat to Congress government and the nefarious plans of the BJP were exposed.
“The BJP is apprehensive of anti-mafia action initiated by Nath government and is engaging is such dirty tactics,” Congress MP media cell in charge Shobha Oza said. We dare the BJP to have a floor test, she added. She claimed that eight MLAs were taken out of the state and four have returned while remaining are still with the BJP.
However, as the matter snowballed into major political controversy nationally, the BJP leaders switched to defensive.
BJP state head VD Sharma was the first to rebut horse trading charges saying BJP wasn’t part of any such thing. “It’s their internal conflicts and leaders like Kamal Nath, Digvijay Singh and Scindia should offer answers on this.”
