Congress countermove stalls BJP’s toppling plan in Madhya Pradesh

Amid a four-day-long political drama, Congress’s countermove to poach BJP MLAs has forced the Opposition party in the state to change its strategy from destabilising the Kamal Nath government to keeping its flock together.

Hours after Congress MLA Hardeep Singh Dang sent his resignation letter from a Bengaluru hotel on Thursday night, two BJP MLAs Narayan Tripathi and Sanjay Pathak were spotted in the chief minister’s house, fuelling speculation of their defection to the Congress. A third BJP MLA Sharad Kol is also ready to join the ruling party, according to Congress sources. Through Kol, a tribal leader, the Congress is said to be trying to rope in other disgruntled BJP MLAs from Scheduled Tribes.

The political circle was agog in the day that three other MLAs staying in Bengaluru might resign but no such report came till late night. In fact, one of the MLAs Surendra Singh Shera called on the chief minister and expressed his faith in his leadership. He said he had gone to Bengaluru with family and was returning soon.

Sensing aggression in the Congress stance, senior BJP leaders met at Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar’s residence in New Delhi to chalk out the future course of action. Others present in the meeting were former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, state president VD Sharma, Leader of Opposition Gopal Bhargava and Inion ministers Prahlad Patel and Dharmendra Pradhan.

In Bhopal, Chief Minister Kamal Nath presided over his cabinet’s meeting and asked all Congress MLAs to rush to the state capital. On Nath’s call, Digvijay Singh also returned to Bhopal from New Delhi to assist the chief minister in defusing the crisis that began on Tuesday with reports of ten MLAs being kept in a Gurugram hotel.

However, six of the MLAs returned to Bhopal next day and pledged support to the chief minister.

One of them, Ram Bai of BSP, was present during the cabinet meeting. She is likely to find a berth in the ministry in its expansion which is long overdue.