BJP wooing Congress MLAs: Digvijay Singh
Digvijay Singh claims BJP planning to topple Nath govt, Shivraj calls it outrageous'.
Bhopal: Congress veteran Digvijay Singh Monday dropped a bombshell by claiming that the BJP was plotting to topple the Kamal Nath government.
The former CM alleged that the BJP was offering '25 crore to '35 crore each to Congress MLAs in Madhya Pradesh to switch sides to pull down the state Congress government, which had a wafer-thin majority in the house.
“Shivraj Singh Chouhan (former chief minister and BJP national vice-president) and Narottam Mishra (former minister) are wooing Congress MLAs to split the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) in MP”, Digvijay Singh told reporters.
He said that the warring leaders, Mr Chouhan and Mr Mishra, had ironed out their differences and were now nursing hopes of becoming chief minister and deputy chief minister respectively by replacing the Kamal Nath government with a BJP regime in the state. government with a BJP regime in the state.
“Each Congress MLA is being offered '25 crore to '35 crore by the BJP. But, they (BJP) should remember that MP is not Karnataka and Congress MLAs in MP are not for sale,” he said while referring to the split in the CLP in Karnataka, leading to the fall of the Kumaraswamy government recently.
Mr Singh indicated that he had evidence to support his claim.
Mr Chouhan, however, rubbished Mr Singh’s claim, describing it as “outrageous”.
“He (Mr Singh) is adept at spreading canards. He often gives such outrageous statements to remain in the news. He may be making such baseless allegations to prove his relevance before the chief minister,” Mr Chouhan said.
Former minister Mr Mishra said that Mr Singh was making such wild allegations to coerce the chief minister to re-nominate him to the Rajya Sabha in the March 26 biennial polls in Madhya Pradesh.
The Congress has a strength of 114 in the 230-member Assembly and is enjoying support from two BSP MLAs, one SP legislator, and four independents. The BJP has 107 MLAs.
Three members from MP, Prabhat Jha and Satyanarayan Jatia (both BJP) and Digvijay Singh of the Congress, are going to retire from the Rajya Sabha on April 9.