BHOPAL: In a significant political development on Wednesday, the Independent MLA from Bhagwanpura Kedar Dabar announced his support to Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government in Madhya Pradesh ahead of the bypolls to 28 Assembly seats.
"I've decided to support the BJP government for development of my constituency," said Dabar, after meeting state minister for cooperative Arvind Singh Bhadoria at the latter's residence in Bhopal on Wednesday.
Talking to journalists, Bhadoria (considered close to the CM) said Dabar took the decision following a meeting with the CM on Tuesday.
In a related development, another Independent MLA Surendra Singh (Shera Bhaiya) met Bhadoria in Bhopal. Singh, an MLA from Burhanpur seat, is already supporting the government headed by Chouhan.
With this, all the four Independent MLAs along with two BSP MLAs and lone SP MLA are now backing the government. All these seven MLAs were earlier supporting the Kamal Nath-led Congress government for 15 months.
Following Wednesday's development, the BJP needs to win at least two out of the 28 seats to stay in power with the support of the seven allied MLAs. But, the party will have to win at least nine seats to get simple majority (116 seats in 230-member House).
In the present 202-member Vidhan Sabha, the BJP enjoys a majority on its own with 107 MLAs and is much beyond the simple majority figure 102 with the support of the seven allied MLAs.
Reacting to the development, Congress state media vice-president Bhupendra Gupta said this clearly shows that the BJP is not going to win enough seats in the by-polls to stay in power on its own. The party is nervous and trying to be in power with the support of other MLAs.
"But BJP's efforts of staying in power with the support of other MLAs won't be fruitful as all 28 seats will be won by the Congress," said Gupta.