BHOPAL: Amid claims by his party leaders about many more BJP MLAs likely to crossover to Congress in the wake of two saffron party MLAs voting with Congress MLAs in support of an amendment bill in the Vidhan Sabha on Wednesday evening, the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath said on Thursday, “we don’t want to divide the state on partisan politics, but instead want to focus on state’s development with priority.”
A day after the dramatic political developments in the Vidhan Sabha left the BJP shell-shocked, the CM tweeted on Thursday, “we want to take Madhya Pradesh on top of the country in terms of development and want to draw a new roadmap for state’s development. The state’s development is our topmost priority, we don’t want to divide the state on lines of partisan politics.”
“Right from the beginning we’ve hoped that the opposition will do constructive politics and work with us for the development of the state, besides respecting the people’s verdict. We’re still hopeful that the opposition will work with us in a constructive manner to aid the state’s development,” tweeted Nath.
The CM’s words were a clear departure from what he had said on Wednesday evening after the two BJP MLAs Narayan Tripathi and Sharad Kol had voted with Congress MLAs to support an amendment bill in the Vidhan Sabha.
The two rebel BJP MLAs had described their voting along with Congress and allied MLAs as ghar-vapasi (homecoming) as they were part of the Congress in the past.
Reacting to that development on Wednesday evening, the CM had then stated “that it shouldn’t be just seen as a division of votes on an amendment bill’s passage, but it was actually a vote to prove that we had the majority in the house. The BJP was terming my government as a minority government for past six months and saying that this government will fall any day. Even today in House, the Leader of Opposition had said one signal and the government is down. I asked him to test strength on floor of the House. It was then that I decided to settle the matter for once and all. This division of votes was not for the Bill but to show majority in House.”
“BJP MLAs Narayan Tripathi and Sharad Kol voted in our favour after hearing their conscience. Today we have proved support of 122 MLAs. They (BJP leaders) used to claim that 8-10 Congress MLAs are in touch with them, where are those MLAs,” Nath had asked on Wednesday.