Posters were seen in Chhindwara constituency that MP Kamal Nath and MLA Nakul Nath are "missing"
Posters proclaiming senior Congress leader Kamal Nath and his son Nakul Nath, a Lok Sabha MP, are missing and offering a Rs 21,000 reward appeared in their stronghold Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh amid the nationwide lockdown for the novel coronavirus.
While the former Chief Minister is the MLA from Chhindwara, his son won the Lok Sabha polls from the constituency in 2019.
"Chhindwara's public is looking for their missing MP and MLA during this crisis. A reward of Rs 21,000 will be given to the person who bring them here," the posters, put up in several places with the images of the two, read.
A line from a Hindi film song that goes "Chitthi na koi Sandesh" (Not a letter, nor a message) was also written on the posters to drive home the point that the MP and MLA are allegedly "incommunicado".
Local Congress leaders submitted a memorandum to the police about the posters, with Chhindwara Kotwali police station in charge Vinod Kushwaha stating that action will be taken after an investigation.
Meanwhile, BJP leader Pankaj Chaturvedi, a close aide of former Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, told news agency PTI that Kamal Nath and Nakul Nath were offering a lot of knowledge about coronavirus threat to the people these days.
"But how much work are they doing at the ground level? The problem is that Kamal Nath is busy fighting an internal battle in the Congress. So he has no time for Chhindwara. They will reach their constituencies only when polls are around," he said.
Hitting back, MP Congress media coordinator Narendra Saluja told news agency PTI the BJP should state how many times Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan visited his Assembly seat Budhni during the outbreak, adding that the latter had not stepped out of capital Bhopal even once.
"Both Kamal Nath and Nakul Nath are in touch with the people in Chhindwara. Both are in a red zone at present and can't move out from there. This is BJP's misinformation campaign," he said.
Last week, similar "missing in action" posters had come up in Bhopal targeting its BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)