A day after the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh was plunged into crisis when 17 MLAs loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia went to Bengaluru, Scindia met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah in Delhi on Tuesday. Jyotiraditya met Modi at his official residence on Tuesday.
The meeting, reported by various outlets, is likely to heighten speculation that Jyotiraditya Scindia could leave the Congress, if not switch sides to the BJP altogether, causing the collapse of the Kamal Nath government. The Times of India reported Scindia and Shah have been at Modi's residence for over 30 minutes.
Ironically, the development comes on the 75th birth anniversary of Madhavrao Scindia, the father of Jyotiraditya Scindia, and a former Union minister in the Congress era. Madhavrao died in an air crash in 2001.
Jyotiraditya Scindia and his loyalists were purportedly unhappy over the issue of allocation of cabinet berths and support for Scindia for the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls.
Interestingly, earlier in the day, BJP leader Shivraj Singh Chouhan—a three-time chief minister of Madhya Pradesh—had said the BJP was not interested in toppling the Kamal Nath government and termed the developments as the "internal matter" of the ruling party.
In a tweet, Chouhan said, "This is the Congress' internal mater and I would not like to comment on it. We had said on the first day that we are not interested in bringing down the government.”
However, former minister and senior BJP leader Narottam Mishra, who was with Chouhan in Bhopal, said the resignation of 20 ministers on Monday night is an indication that something is wrong in the Congress.