BHOPAL: Deepak Joshi, the son of former Madhya Pradesh CM Kailash Chandra Joshi, joined the opposition Congress in Bhopal on Saturday, a day after ending his years of association with the BJP.
Joshi was a minister of school and technical education minister in the previous Shivraj Singh Chouhan government between 2013 and 2018. He has been a three-time BJP MLA.
He joined the Congress in the state party headquarters in Bhopal in the presence of senior leaders, including state party chief Kamal Nath and the leader of the Opposition in the assembly, Dr Govind Singh. The newcomer was scathing in his criticism of CM Chouhan.
“I’ve heard the CM saying today that he considers me his younger brother. But let me make it clear to him that I’m not his brother, as brothers share an ideology,” he said.
“I was the president of the college in which he (the CM) studied and knew all his machinations. I’ve made it clear that I’ve not joined the Congress for contesting any polls or getting any post, but instead to get the honour due to me, my family and our committed workers, who have lost respect in the BJP,” said Joshi.
“If the Congress wants to field me in the next assembly polls, I would request the state party chief to field me from Budhni against the MP CM. I know the pitch on which the CM has been playing for long. I can bowl him out,” he said. “I can get the Congress the prized wicket it has been waiting for. If he (Nath) gives me the go-ahead from the Budhni seat, I’ll start working there in the next three-four days,” said Joshi. He said he was ready to embark on a padyatra to expose the “rampant corruption” in the present BJP regime.
He said he was hurt over the delay in building a memorial for his ex-CM father who was the first CM of Jan Sangh in MP and died in 2019. “I’ve been taking up the issue with all state-level leaders of the BJP for two-and-a-half years, but nothing happened,” said Joshi. He also made a sensational claim pertaining to the death of his wife due to Covid-19 infection in 2021.
“My wife was in a serious condition and the doctors in Dewas district asked us to rush her to a big hospital in Indore immediately. But the Dewas administration had been instructed not to listen to me,” alleged Joshi.