30 BJP MLAs sought Congress tickets: Kamal Nath

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath on Sunday dropped a bomb cell by making a sensational disclosure that 30 ruling BJP legislators have been lobbying to get tickets from his party for the year-end assembly elections in the state.

“Of around 2000 people who have applied for tickets from Congress for the forthcoming assembly elections in MP, 30 are sitting BJP MLAs”, he told reporters in Indore in MP.

“These BJP legislators have been in touch with us desiring to contest the upcoming assembly elections as Congress candidates”, he claimed.

Mr Nath was talking to reporters on the sidelines of staging a road show in Indore, known as financial capital of MP.

BJP however described his announcement as a “cheap gimmick” by Mr Nath to get publicity for his party ahead of the year-end polls in MP.

“Mr Nath was either hallucinating or trying to impress Congress president Rahul Gandhi by producing his highly inflated report card.

Leave alone MLAs, not a single cadre from BJP would like to join a sinking party like Congress. I challenge him to name at least one MLA who was begging for Congress ticket”, BJP spokesman here Rajnish Agrawal said.

Mr Agrawal, on the other hand, claimed that several senior Congress leaders were going to join BJP in coming days.

“We will come out with their names shortly”, he added.

Mr Nath said that selection of candidates in Congress would be done merely on the basis of their winning prospects.

“The party has dumped the early system of selection of candidates on the basis of quotas of party veterans. The only criteria for nomination of party will be winning prospects of the candidates”, he said.

BJP has strength of 168 in MP assembly, while Congress has 56 MLAs.