Bhopal: With barely 48 hours left for the D-Day of the announcement of results of November 28 assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday, ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Opposition Congress have put in place their respective “Plan B” to deal with the situation in case the polls threw a fractured mandate.
BJP has begun confabulations with its rebels who contested the elections as independent candidates after being denied a party ticket to back the party to form the government in the state in case BJP fell short of a majority after emerging the single largest party in the elections, sources said on Sunday.
“We are in touch with the rebel candidates to seek their support in case the party fell short of touching the magic figure of 115 in the elections. We have not taken disciplinary action against many rebel candidates earlier keeping in view emergence of such a situation”, a senior BJP leader disclosed to this newspaper requesting not to be quoted.
Around a dozen rebel candidates of BJP were in the fray in the just-concluded assembly elections in the state and at least 3-4 of them may win their seats, sources said.
“However, we are confident that we will get a majority in the elections. Our assessment says we may secure 130-135 out of total 230 seats”, sources added.
Incidentally, senior rebel BJP leader Ramkrishna Kusumaria who was contesting as an independent candidate from two assembly seats, on Tuesday, dropped hints that he was not averse to supporting BJP to form the government after the polls.
“I wanted to send a message to the party by filing nomination as an independent candidate. I have nothing against the party now”, he said.
Similarly, the Opposition Congress was also in touch with candidates of Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) besides its rebel candidates to seek their support in case the party fell short of the majority in the polls.
A senior Congress leader confided before this newspaper that the party has already begun the exercise of forming the government in alliance with SP and BSP if Congress failed to muster a majority in the elections.
