Amid reports of a midnight shift and ‘’rescue’’ of some Madhya Pradesh Congress, non-Congress and non-BJP MLAs from a hotel in Gurugram, State BJP chief and Lok Sabha member from Khajhuraho Vishnu Dutt Sharma said it was an internal issue of the Congress.
Mr. Sharma told The Hindu that his party was only “watching” the developments and not behind these moves. “It is the Congress’s own internal politics that has led to this situation. Chief Minister Kamal Nath, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Digvijaya Singh are playing their own games over the coming Rajya Sabha elections. It is convenient to blame the BJP,” he said.
“If you look at the comments on record by Congress leaders in the State in the last few months, including Sajjan Singh Verma, who said a ‘kitchen cabinet’ was running the government; or Ajay Singh, who said nobody was listening to party leaders; or Scindia himself, who has threatened to hit the streets against Kamal Nath government, it’s all clear. Their own party leaders are blackmailing the Kamal Nath government over Rajya Sabha berths,” he said.
To reports that some MLAs may have been moved to the BJP-ruled Karnataka, Mr. Sharma reiterated that the party knew nothing about it. “It’s a free country, people can go where they want, we are not moving anyone”.
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As for independents and MLAs of the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party, crucial for the support of the Congress-led government, meeting BJP leaders, he said, “if someone wants to have tea at our place, should we say no?”
At least eight MLAs, including four non-Congress MLAs, were reportedly shifted to a hotel in Gurugram and four of them were reportedly “rescued” by Congress leaders, including Mr. Digvijaya Singh.
