Shivraj Chouhan tacitly owns up controversial audio, invokes religion

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday (June 11) tacitly owned the controversial audio clip in which he is heard admitting that the BJP central leadership toppled the Kamal Nath government. The audio clip is about Chouhan’s discussion with BJP workers at Residency Kothi in Indore on Tuesday. Ever since it went viral, the audio has kicked up a political storm in the state because hitherto the BJP had been blaming the Congress’s internal contradictions for the fall of the Congress government in March this year.

Citing the audio, the Congress is asserting that the chief minister’s admission has validated the party’s allegation that the BJP conspired in collusion with Jyotiraditya Scindia to unseat a democratically elected government.

In a cryptic tweet, which is being viewed in the context of the audio row, Shivraj Singh Chouhan said, “Annihilation of sinners is a pious act. This is precisely what our religion says.”

Chouhan’s tweet has further fuelled the controversy with Congress vowing to take up the matter to the Supreme Court.

Former chief minister Kamal Nath said he had been saying from day one what the chief minister is heard in the audio.

Senior Congress leader Digvijay Singh has extended left-hand compliment to Shivraj Singh Chouhan for what he called “ exposing hands of Narendra Modi and Amit Shah in the conspiracy to topple the Kamal Nath government.

“Now it has become clear that when the Prime Minister was supposed to devote his time to fighting the outbreak of the coronavirus, he was busy in toppling the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh”, Singh said.

BJP sources said the chief minister has tried to shift the blame for the fall of the Congress government to avert BJP workers simmering anger against him.

A perception has been growing in the BJP cadres, particularly in the Chambal-Gwalior region, that some ambitious state leaders including Shivraj Singh Chouhan played a key role in engineering defection of Jyotiraditya Scindia and his 19 MLAs to grab power for themselves at the expanse of the political future of local party leaders.

As per the deal with Scindia, the BJP is obliged to field all the defectors MLAs from the Congress, ignoring its own aspirants in the 24 assembly seats where by-elections are due sometime in September. Of these 24 seats, 16 are in the Gwalior region considered Scindia’s political bastion.

The BJP sources said the chief minister deliberately but astutely mentioned the high command’s role in the toppling game in the discussion with party workers to subtly send out the message that he merely complied with the central leadership’s command.