No, this can’t be, I said to myself when I heard that Madhya Pradesh senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia has resigned from the party and is likely to join the BJP. 21 Congress MLAs also quit the party along with Scindia.
It is being rumoured that for the move of Scindia which has threatened the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh, the Central Government is most likely to reward him with a Rajya Sabha nomination and eventually a place in the central cabinet.
In the state, the Madhya Pradesh government has a wafer-thin majority of just four above the majority mark of 116. 21 Congress MLAs also quit along with Scindia and if the resignations are accepted, the party will lose power.
As happens in such cases, both the BJP and the Congress have moved their MLAs out of Madhya Pradesh for safe-keeping. While the BJP has put up its MLAs at the five-star ITC Grand Bharat in Gurgaon, the Congress has reportedly taken its members to Jaipur in Rajasthan where the party is in power.
On the other hand, the MP Chief Minister Kamal Nath has said that he was confident that his government will complete its term. “There is nothing to worry about. We will prove our majority,” he said.
Other reports say that Scindia was unhappy with the Congress leadership for some time. Once close to the Gandhi family, he lost the race for chief ministership in 2018 after he showed support of only 23 MLAs despite making a sizeable contribution to the Congress’ unexpected Assembly polls win. In August, he was one of a few opposition leaders who supported the centre’s Article 370 move to end special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
Shortly after he sent in a letter of resignation to Congress chief Sonia Gandhi on dated March 9, he spoke of “moving ahead.” This is a path that has been drawing itself out over the last year,” he added.Minutes later the Congress expelled the former Guna MP from the party “with immediate effect” for “anti-party activities”.
At this point of time while I was writing this, got a call from a senior politician of Maharashtra. He wanted to discuss the MP problem with me. I told him that this couldn’t be possible as being a senior party leader the party wouldn’t let him go. No, he said that anything can happen. In continuation, my friend said that he had heard that Scindia has been asked to leave the party and join the BJP where he would act as a spy for his parent party.
To support his statement, he mentioned the name of Alienologist / Senior Conspiracy Theorist, Amit Von Daniken. Later when I talked to Daniken, he said, ”Nothing will harm the Congress. It is so that Scindia has ganged up with Rahul Gandhi and agreed to be the Congress ‘Trojan Horse’ once he joins the BJP.”
To sum up, the BJP is gung ho of the developments because Scindia’s move will herald the return of Shivraj Chouhan as the CM of the state again. Not only that, this might also alter equations in Maharashtra that could bring back the BJP to power.
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
