Trouble for Kamal Nath in MP as 18 Scindia camp MLAs mooved to Bengaluru

mangaloretoday.com/yahoo

Bengaluru, March 09, 2020: Congress MLAs believed to be close to senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia have gone incommunicado mysteriously in yet another headache for Chief Minister Kamal Nath days after eight MLAs who had gone missing amid horse-trading allegations returned to the state.

Sources told News18 that 18 Congress MLAs, including five ministers, are currently in Bengaluru and their phones are switched off. The ministers whose mobile phones are switched off included health minister Tulsi Silavat, labour minister Mahendra Singh Sisodia, transport minister Govind Singh Rajput, women and child development minister Imarti Devi, food and civil supplies minister Pradyumna Singh Tomar and school education minister Dr Prabhura Choudhary.

The turf war between Nath and Scindia is no secret in the state, with the two having locked horns in public last month. The Guna royal had threatened to take to the streets if his party’s government in the state failed to meet the demands of protesting guest teachers, and the CM virtually dared him to follow through. Scindia and Nath had fallen out over the post of the state Congress president, which is currently held by the chief minister.

Monday’s development came against the backdrop of the ruling party accusing the BJP of trying to poach its MLAs to topple the Kamal Nath government, which enjoys a wafer thin majority in the Assembly, and imminent expansion of the state Cabinet.

Nath met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi in Delhi earlier in the day and discussed cabinet expansion as well as the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections.

Amid those lobbying for a berth in the expanded cabinet is party MLA Bisahu Lal Singh, who was the eighth MLA who returned from Bengaluru after being ‘missing’ for six days. A total of 10 MLAs had gone incommunicado of whom two — Raghuraj Singh Kansana and Hardeep Singh Dang — are yet to be traced.

The widening rift comes at a time when the party is prepping for the Rajya Sabha polls scheduled on March 26. The Rajya Sabha terms of Congress veteran Digvijay Singh, and BJP leaders Prabhat Jha and Satyanarayan Jatiya will end on April 9.

As per the arithmetic in the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly, the two parties are sure to win one Rajya Sabha seat each, but a tussle is likely for the third seat. While the Congress has 114 MLAs, the opposition BJP has 107 legislators.

Four Independent MLAs, two lawmakers of the Bahujan Samaj Party and one legislator of the Samajwadi Party are supporting the Congress-led state government. Two seats are vacant following the demise of a Congress and a BJP legislator.