BHOPAL: Just a few days after union home minister and former BJP national president Amit Shah made it clear that BJP had no role in the collapse of the Kamal Nath-led Congress government in Madhya Pradesh in March 2020, the present MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan has told party workers that it was BJP’s central leadership which had decided the fall of the Congress government.
An audio clip containing the MP CM’s address to party workers from Indore’s Sanwer assembly segment during his Monday’s visit to Indore has gone viral.
In the clip, Chouhan is heard saying, “Kendriya netritatva nein tay kiya ki sarkar girni chahiye, nahi toh ye barbad kar degi, tabah kar degi. Aur aap batao Jyotiraditya Scindia aur Tulsi Bhai ke bina sarkar gir sakti thee kya. Aur koi tarika nahi thaa. (It was the central leadership which had decided that government will be dislodged, else it would ruin everything. Tell me was it possible to dislodge the government without Jyotiraditya Scindia and Tulsi Silawat. There was no other way.),” the CM said while addressing the party workers from Sanwer assembly segment at the Residency Kothi in Indore on Monday.
The CM went on to add, “Aaj mai Jyotiraditya Scindia aur Tulsi Bhai ka isliye swaagat karta hoon, kyonki BJP ki sarkar banana ke liye unhone mantripad chor diya. Ab ho rahein hai chunaav, imaandaari se batao ki Tulsi agar vidhayak nahi rahe toh hum CM rahenge kya… BJP ki sarkar bachegi kya (I welcome Jyotiraditya Scindia and Tulsi Silawat, as Tulsi Silawat left minister’s post for the formation of BJP government. In the coming by-poll if Tulsi Silawat doesn’t become MLA again, will I be able to remain CM, will the BJP government survive),” Chouhan said.
Reacting to the development, Congress leader Narendra Saluja, (also the media coordinator of ex-CM and present MP Congress Committee chief Kamal Nath), said "Shivraj Singh Chouhan has himself spoken the truth that the BJP was instrumental in pulling off the Kamal Nath government with the help of Jyotiraditya Scindia and loyalists. Chouhan’s pep talk to party workers in Indore has also unravelled another truth that it was BJP’s central leadership which had decided to dislodge the Congress government in MP."
Embarrassed by the audio clip, the state BJP spokesperson Rajneesh Agrawal tried to play down the issue down. “It has been said by him (Chouhan) in the past that the Congress government fell under its own weight. The government fell due to 22 Scindia loyalist MLAs and the ally MLAs and the state BJP formed the next government following the consent from the central leadership.”
Importantly, the former national BJP president and present union home minister Amit Shah had made it clear in a television interview recently that BJP had no role in dislodging the Congress government in MP.
In March, the 22 Scindia loyalist BJP MLAs (including six ministers) had quit from Vidhan Sabha and the Congress, consequently leading to the fall of the 15-month-old Kamal Nath government in MP. Scindia and his loyalist 22 MLAs, including former and present minister Tulsi Silawat are now in BJP.
Bulk 24 assembly by-polls are slated to be held in the coming months in MP, including 22 by-elections necessitated by the resignation of the Scindia loyalist MLAs, among them Tulsi Silawat, who is likely to be fielded this time as BJP candidate from Sanwer-SC seat of Indore.