On Tuesday, March 10, Congress’s blue-eyed boy Jyotiraditya Scindia appeared to have changed colours abruptly on the occasion of Holi. Shortly after a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Scindia a four time Member of Parliament from Madhya Pradesh’s Guna constituency, posted a picture of his letter of resignation from India’s grand old party on Twitter sending political circles and the media into a tizzy.
— Jyotiraditya M. Scindia (@JM_Scindia) March 10, 2020
But it wasn’t just Scindia who exited the Congress. 22 MLAs said to be loyal to him also resigned from the state government, sending the Kamal Nath led establishment into damage control mode to check the hemorrhage. The 230 member MP assembly had 114 Congress MLAs as opposed to 107 of the BJP. Now, the Congress has lost its majority and has sent its MLAs into hiding to prevent them from being wooed by the other side.
Amidst this, a video was posted by Dr Anand Rai, who had previously exposed the Vyapam scam, showing alleged ‘horse-trading’ by the BJP. Dr Rai claims the video is of a ‘sting operation’ where BJP leader Narottam Mishra is offering Rs 100 crores and a ministerial birth to MLAs in exchange for toppling the Kamal Nath government.
Madhyapradesh #horsetrading Exposed जनमत को खरीदने की जुगत में भाजपा @CMMadhyaPradesh @OfficeOfKNath @digvijaya_28 @VTankha @Profdilipmandal @TribalArmy @BhimArmyChief @kanhaiyakumar @jarariya91 @ReallySwara @ABPNews @ndtv @PrannoyRoyNDTV @PTI_News @ANI @News18MP @vijaymandge pic.twitter.com/sS4YodtMJm
— Dr.ANAND RAI (@anandrai177) March 4, 2020
SabrangIndia has not been able to independently verify the authenticity of the video. Meanwhile, Rai told PTI, “This video was shot at a room in the Madhya Pradesh Bhavan located in Chanakyapuri area of Delhi which was recorded with an spy camera during my meeting with BJP leader Narottam Mishra last year.” This suggests that the alleged conspiracy to overthrow the Congress government in MP had been afoot for a while. However, state BJP spokesperson Umesh Sharma has dismissed the video as “fake and misleading.”
The timing of Scindia’s exit and Rai’s video is also curious given the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections in the state. It is noteworthy that Scindia who hails from the erstwhile royal family in the state and has often played a key role in securing victory for the Congress Party was rather publicly snubbed by the party when Chief Ministership of the state was handed over to Kamal Nath and not Scindia after the 2018 legislative assembly elections. Then in 2019, Scindia lost from Guna for the first time to BJP’s KP Yadav in the Lok Sabha elections. Moreover, hawk eyed media watchers had also noticed how Scindia had changed his Twitter bio to just “Public servant, cricket enthusiast” instead of one containing any information on allegiance to or position in the Congress party last year.
Word is that Scindia will join the BJP officially at 12:30 on March 11. Meanwhile, India Today reports that, “Congress has booked 42 of the 52 rooms at Buena Vista Resort in Jaipur for its 92 MLAs. The other rooms may also likely to be taken over by the Congress party in a while. This is the same hotel where Maharashtra Congress MLAs were lodged during the crisis over government formation in the state last year.”