BENGALURU: As a Dassault Falcon 2000LX aircraft, bearing the call sign VT-BVV, touched down at the HAL Airport on late Monday afternoon, a fresh political storm kicked off in far away Madhya Pradesh, pushing the Kamal Nath government again to the brink.
The aircraft was carrying a precious political cargo of Congress MLAs, all said to be loyal to party’s rebel leader Jyotiraditya Scindia.
As soon as the MLAs landed after their two-and-a-half-hour journey in the chartered flight, they were whisked away to a resort on the outskirts in eastern parts of Bengaluru near Whitefield-Mahadevapura area. Mahadevpura MLA and former minister Arvind Limbavalli and other BJP leaders have been tasked with managing the MLAs and taking care of the logistics of fresh round of Operation Lotus targeting Kamal Nath, who has a wafer-thin majority in the assembly.
The 17 MLAs who have reached Bengaluru, in staggered batches, are Pradumn Singh Tomar (minister), Imarti Devi (minister), Prabhuram Chowdhary (minister), Govind Singh Rajput (minister), Tulsi Silawat (minister), Mahendra Singh Sisodiya (minister), Roxha Sironi, Pradumn Singh Tomar, Rajvardhan Singh Datigaon, OPS Badoria, Giriraj Dandotiya, Brijendra Yadav, Jaspal Jetty, Ranveer Jatav, Kamalesh Jatav, Jaswant Jatav, Munnalal Goyal and Suresh Rathkheda ‘Dhakad’. They join two other party MLAs, HS Dang and Raghuraj Kansana, who have been holed up in the city over the last week.
Late on Monday night in Bhopal, as many as 20 out of the 28 cabinet ministers of the Kamal Nath-led Congress government collectively resigned from their ministerial posts, paving way for the chief minister to reconstitute his council of ministers amid the biggest ever political crisis to have hit the 14-month-old government. At the emergency cabinet meeting, all the 20 ministers who attended submitted their resignations to the CM.
Congress sources told TNIE in Bengaluru that for now, assembly opposition leader Siddaramaiah has been asked not to make any move but to keep a watch on the 19 MLAs from MP. KPCC president Dinesh Gundurao too has been asked to assist Siddaramaiah in case they have to reach out to the rebel MLAs. Sources said that the party does not want to rush in and muddle the situation putting further pressure on the Kamal Nath government.
Sources close to the Scindia faction said the chartered flight cost about Rs 7.5 lakh. The aircraft was piloted by Capt Rahul Singh and Capt Amrik with the flight attendant Khusboo on board.
Siddu told to wait, watch
Karnataka Congress leader Siddaramaiah has been asked not to make any move but to keep a watch, sources said
All 114 MLAs summoned
All 114 Congress MLAs have been summoned to Bhopal on Tuesday morning, while the BJP legislature party too would meet in Bhopal on Tuesday evening