Former Union Minister and four-time parliamentarian Jyotiraditya Scindia resigned from the Congress today plunging the 15-month-old Kamal Nath government into crisis. Mr Scindia sent his resignation to Congress interim president Sonia Gandhi shortly after he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the latter's residence. Sources have said Mr Scindia may join the BJP, either today or on Saturday, and be nominated to the Rajya Sabha as its member. Mr Scindia's move, which comes a day after 17 Congress MLAs loyal to him were flown by chartered plane to BJP-ruled Karnataka, has left the Madhya Pradesh government on the brink a dramatic collapse.
Sources within the Madhya Pradesh Raj Bhavan have said 21 Congress MLAs have already submitted letters of resignation. Sources had earlier said that 25 MLAs were ready to resign.
A meeting of the BJP Central Election Committee (CEC) was held at the party headquarters in Delhi today to decide the candidates for the Rajya Sabha biennial elections. The meeting was attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, BJP chief JP Nadda and other members of the CEC.
"We have nothing to do with this. This is Congress' internal matter and I would not like to comment on it. We had said on the first day that we are not interested in bringing down the government," senior BJP leader and former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said.
The BJP has called its MLAs to Bhopal for a show of strength today evening. Sources said Shivraj Singh Chouhan could be chosen the leader of the legislative party in the meeting.
As of today morning the Kamal Nath government had 120 MLAs - just four over the majority mark of 116 in the 230-member assembly.
