Posters accusing Chouhan of graft surface in several MP cities; Cong, BJP trade charges

A day before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit here, posters targeting Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan over alleged corruption surfaced in Bhopal, Indore and some other cities of the state on Monday.

The ruling BJP alleged the Congress had put up these posters, a charge denied by the Opposition party which said "people" aggrieved with corruption had pasted them as the two national outfits traded charges ahead of the year-end Assembly polls. The PM is scheduled to visit Bhopal on Tuesday.

The Madhya Pradesh Congress, on its Twitter handle, shared videos of these posters that emerged in Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Sehore, Rewa, Mandsaur, Ujjain, Bhind, Balaghat, Budhni and some other cities. Of these, Budhni is the Assembly seat represented by Chouhan.

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The posters feature a QR code and a picture of Chouhan with the message “50% Lao, Kam Karao” (bring 50 per cent and get the work done) along with leading online payment app PhonePe. In a tweet from its official Twitter handle, the state Congress said the CM's pictures were spotted in Indore's Nanda Nagar, the home turf of BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya.

“Posters of Shivraj's corruption pasted in BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya's home turf. Bring 50%, get the work done on the phone. The people of Madhya Pradesh know and recognise those who take 50% commission,” the Congress said in a tweet. The Opposition party also shared a video showing similar posters outside a park named after Chouhan's son Kartikeya in Budhni town.

“There was a 40% government in Karnataka. Shivraj defeated the BJP government of Karnataka in matter of corruption,” said the Congress while sharing pictures showing the posters in Bhopal. Asked about the CM's posters, state Congress president Kamal Nath told reporters in Bhopal that this campaign was started by the BJP. On June 23, the posters of Chouhan and Nath containing corruption charges had surfaced surreptitiously in the state capital.

The Congress leader's posters had surfaced in the Shahpura area of Bhopal dubbing him as “corrupt Nath”, listing him as “wanted”, and linking him to a number of “scams”. These posters also featured a QR code with the message “Scam se bachne ke liye scan kare” (scan to prevent scams).

On the same day, two posters with Chouhan's pictures and captioned, “Not Shivraj, But Scam Rule” and “Shivraj's 18 years of rampant scams and frauds” with a mention of the Vyapam scam -- an admission and recruitment racket -- came up alongside a busy link road just a stone's throw away from the state Congress office. State BJP spokesman Narendra Saluja termed the poster campaign as dirty politics of the Congress.

“Kamal Nath ji was talking very idealistically about the posters, calling them bad politics, while members of NSUI (Congress student wing) were caught red-handed in Chhindwara putting up the posters. It is being said these people were putting up the posters on Nath's instructions,” Saluja said in a tweet and shared a video of some young men putting up posters. Piyush Babele, Nath's media advisor, said the posters were put up by people who are fed up with corruption.