The intra-party fight that was associated with the Congress in Madhya Pradesh till now, has caught up with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state. This push and pull situation between the senior state leaders to establish their presence in the state, where “positions” have fallen vacant due to the movement of top leaders to Central politics, is being attributed as the primary reason that led to two BJP MLAs cross-voting and supporting the Congress in the Assembly earlier this week.
An RSS functionary, who is following the developments, said: “Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Kailash Vijayvargiya and Narendra Tomar are the regional satraps. With these three leaders now mostly handling Central responsibilities, Rakesh Singh (state BJP president), Gopal Bhargava (Leader of Opposition) and Narottam Mishra (MLA and party’s most vocal leader), who see each other as competition, are trying to emerge stronger than the other. Mishra wanted to be appointed as the LoP, a position which was given to Bhargava. This recent development (MLAs voting for Congress) has damaged Bhargava and Rakesh Singh the most. The Central leadership needs to bring every state leader together so that anything like this is not repeated in the future. Many of the MLAs have complained that they are not ‘heard’ by senior leaders; this makes it vulnerable to them being poached.”
Party sources said that national working president J.P. Nadda is likely to visit Bhopal next week to meet the party MLAs so that their grievances can be heard. A senior party functionary said: “It is clear that the state leaders failed to keep their flock together. This has been taken very seriously by the Central leadership. The leadership is miffed also as these very senior state leaders just hours before (the voting in the Assembly) were giving statements that they could bring down the Kamal Nath government whenever they want.”
Sources said that the discontent among several MLAs, due to them being ignored by the senior state party leaders, was being repeatedly conveyed to BJP state president Rakesh Singh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and other RSS functionaries, but it was not taken seriously. After the incident, Chouhan has promised that he will hit back and “end the game which was started by the Congress”. Incidentally, the two MLAs, who voted for the Congress, were brought into the party from Congress by Chouhan himself.
The two BJP MLAs who were earlier a part of Congress, Narayan Tripathi (Maihar) and Sharad Kol (Beohari), who voted in favour of the Dand Vidhi (Madhya Pradesh Sansodhan) Bill that was introduced by the Congress government, have gone incommunicado after the voting took place on Wednesday, but not before they addressed a brief press conference with CM Kamalnath.
The BJP strategists believe that the whole thing was fixed well in advance as the demand for the division of votes in the Assembly on Wednesday was requested by the BSP MLA (who is supporting the Congress) despite the BJP announcing the support for the bill and stating that it should be passed without any debate. “The BJP didn’t have a clue that the division will take place; no whip was issued and most importantly, they also were not aware that two of their MLAs have ‘defected’ for all practical purposes. This shows every top leader in a very bad light,” a party RS MP said.
Bhopal-based political observers said that the current development has come as a big jolt for the state and the Central leaders, who were under the impression that they could bring down the Kamal Nath government within hours, as some of the top state leaders, including leader of Opposition Gopal Bhargava and former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan had repeatedly been claiming.
In the November Assembly polls, the Congress had won on 114 seats, with the BJP winning on 109 seats in the 230 (one nominated)-member Assembly. The Congress is right now being supported by four Independent MLAs, one SP MLA and two MLAs from the BSP. The BJP’s number has come down to 108 after Jhabua MLA G.S. Damor was elected to Lok Sabha.
The BJP, too, after the results were announced, was carrying out “negotiations” to seek support of these non-Congress MLAs, but it had to give up after a message from the Central leadership was delivered to the Shivraj-led team to stop the exercise of trying to cobble up a “weak” majority.
Incidentally, the BJP was actively working towards forming the government in Madhya Pradesh till June last week, an “operation” which was being heralded by Narottam Mishra, a close confidante of Chouhan. Party leaders had at that time told The Sunday Guardian that they had got the support of “few MLAs from Congress”, but were not moving in to stake claim as they wanted a “more comfortable number”. How important Mishra is to the party’s scheme of affairs in the state can be gauged from the fact that last week he was provided with X-category security by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.