Former Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, who resigned from the party on Tuesday, is likely to join the BJP today. Scindia’s decision to leave the Congress was followed by the resignation from 22 party MLAs loyal to him, bringing the Kamal Nath government in MP to the brink of collapse.
Before tendering his resignation yesterday, Scindia met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the presence of Home Minister Amit Shah.
Congress has sent two of its leaders– Sajjan Singh Verma and Govind Singh— to Bengaluru in order to pacify some of the rebel MLAs, who are staying in Bengaluru.
Meanwhile, both BJP and the Congress have decided to move their legislators outside of the state and lodge them in luxury hotels, apparently in a bid to keep their respective flocks intact.
While BJP hurried its MLAs to a luxury hotel in Gurugram in wee hours today, Congress will likely move its MLAs from Bhopal to Jaipur later in the day. The development comes days after eight legislators supporting the Nath regime had gone missing. Congress veteran Digvijaya Singh had alleged that the BJP was trying to topple the Congress government in the state and named former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, BJP leaders Narottam Mishra, Bhupendra Singh, Vishwas Sarang and Sanjay Pathak as architects of the crisis.
However, six of the legislators returned to Bhopal over the weekend and asserted full support for the Congress government. Two Congress legislators – Hardeep Dang and Raghuraj Kansana – are still missing and there is speculation that they might join ranks with the Scindia loyalists and quit to bring down the Nath government.
The ongoing crisis, Congress sources say, has been triggered by the ensuing Rajya Sabha polls in which three MPs are to be elected from the state. The Congress and the BJP, with 114 and 107 legislators each, can ensure the successful election of one candidate each. However, the third seat may go to either party because of their near-identical legislative strength and efforts to rest the election.
Both Scindia and Digvijaya are eyeing a Rajya Sabha seat from their home state. Additionally, Scindia had also been lobbying to be named the state Congress president with immediate effect – a position currently held by Nath. Digvijaya and his loyalists, who outnumber Scindia’s in MP, did not want the MP Congress chiefs post to go to the Gwalior royal. Sources say Scindia had communicated to the Congress high command that his patience with the party is fast running out and his loyalty to the party which his father, the late Madhavrao Scindia, had also served dedicatedly should not be taken for granted.
For the Congress, Scindia’s defection could trigger a larger crisis too as it may encourage his contemporary from Rajasthan – deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot – to follow suit. Pilot’s unease within the party ever since he was overlooked for the chief minister’s post in December 2018 in favour of old warhorse Ashok Gehlot is common knowledge. Though Pilot continues to be Gehlot’s deputy and also Rajasthan Congress chief, he wants a greater say in party matters and a position commensurate with that. Speculations about Pilot toying with the idea of launching a regional party in Rajasthan have been made several times over the past year. Revolts from leaders like Milind Deora in Maharashtra and Jitin Prasada in UP cannot be ruled out either.
