Kamal Nath: BJP offered 10 Congress MLAs cash, posts to defect
The chief minister further said his government was ready to face a floor test, as demanded by the BJP.
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath on Tuesday dropped a bombshell here by claiming that the BJP had offered money and posts to 10 Congress MLAs to defect.
The “revelation” by Mr Nath comes in the wake of the BJP demanding a floor test by the Congress government in a special session of the Madhya Pradesh Assembly to “prove its majority”.
“At least 10 Congress MLAs told me that they were offered money and posts by the BJP to defect. They have received phone calls where they were offered bribes to desert the Congress”, Mr Nath told reporters here.
He hastened to add that he had full faith in all his MLAs. “All Congress MLAs are in touch with each other. Not a single Congress MLA is going to desert the party”, he asserted.
In a related development, state minister Pradyumna Singh Tomar claimed that each Congress MLA had been offered Rs 50 crores to defect. The chief minister further said his government was ready to face a floor test, as demanded by the BJP. “We have won floor tests in the House four times in the last four months. We are ready to face a floor test at any time”, he added. He also dismissed the exit polls predicting the NDA’s return to power at the Centre, dubbing it a “source of entertainment”. “Hollowness of exit polls will be exposed on May 23 when the results of the Lok Sabha polls will be declared”, he said, and asserted the “UPA is returning to power at the Centre and the Congress will put up a good show in Madhya Pradesh”.
Interestingly, state legislature affairs minister P.C. Sharma gave a new twist to the horse-trading charges levelled by his party against the BJP, by claiming that at least 25 BJP MLAs were keen to join the Congress if the NDA did not return to power at Centre in the 2019 general election.
BJP vice-president Prabhat Jha, however, dismissed charges of the BJP offering bribes to Congress MLAs to defect, describing them “absolutely rubbish”.
“The BJP believes in democracy. Our party has high regard for democracy”, he added.
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