The ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh has been hit by a flurry of dissent and internal strife, with many leaders openly issuing statements against the party and its state chief V.D. Sharma while others are said to have lodged complaints against fellow leaders and Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia.
Close on the heels of former minister Deepak Joshi, son of BJP bigwig late Kailash Joshi, joining the Congress, many other leaders have come out with statements that underscore the fact that they are being sidelined within the saffron party, especially by Sharma. While some have retracted after meeting with senior leaders, others have given indications that they might join the Congress.
Former minister Harendrajit Singh Babbu went to the extent of saying he was facing a threat to his life from Sharma, while former Vijayraghavgarh (Katni district) MLA Dhruv Pratap Singh issued a video statement saying he might be forced to join Congress as he was being sidelined. Anuppur district general secretary of the BJP Akhilesh Dwivedi resigned from his post and primary membership of the party saying he was constantly insulted and ignored and that to find relevance in the party one had to have an ABVP (RSS-affiliate Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad) certificate (as Sharma was a former president of the state unit of ABVP).
Complaints against Scindia and his supporters who left Congress in March 2020 to facilitate the formation of the BJP government in the state have also started to find a stronger voice in the ruling party as elections near.
The latest in the series was a video of Guna MP K.P. Yadav, released by the state Congress unit on its Twitter handle on Wednesday. In the video, Yadav reportedly called Scindia “a fool who considers himself an intellectual and who does not know what to speak from a dais.”
In the attached video, Yadav alleged without naming anyone that a person is backstabbing the party (BJP) that gave him respect by saying it was a mistake that a BJP MP was elected in 2019. Yadav had defeated Scindia, who was then with the Congress, from Guna by almost 1.25 lakh votes in 2019 Lok Sabha polls and his animosity with the Union minister is well known despite them now being in the same party. In the video, Yadav also says if the person he is referring to has problems with the BJP, he should have stayed back in his old party.
Congress national general secretary-in-charge Jairam Ramesh quote-tweeted the MP Congress post with a comment ‘gaddari ka natija – na ghar ke rahe na ghaat ke’ (the result of betrayal – neither remains here nor there’). Despite repeated attempts, THE WEEK could not get a response from Yadav on the issue.
Meanwhile, there are rumours that senior minister Gopal Bhargava and Govind Rajput – both from Sagar district - met Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan along with some local MLAs and party office bearers on Tuesday to air grievance against another senior minister Bhupendra Singh. Singh is considered close to Chouhan and the ministers and MLAs allegedly threatened to resign if Singh’s interference in every work in the district was not curbed.
Another version of the rumoured meeting said Gopal Bhargava had complained against Govind Rajput, who is a Scindia supporter. Bhargava, however, released a video denying the rumours and said he had met the chief minister regarding poll preparations and strategy and added that the party will fight in a united manner to get two-thirds majority in assembly polls and all 29 Lok Sabha seats in 2024.
BJP seeks to downplay the situation
The state BJP sought to underplay the issue. State spokesperson Dr Hitesh Bajpai told THE WEEK that statements against the party and state president Sharma were politically motivated and made by people who were positioning themselves ahead of the assembly polls according to their electoral aspirations.
He also added that the allegations against the party and the president were unsubstantiated and thus had little value on the ground.
“The elections are just 180 days away and some leaders of different levels and ages are trying to position themselves so that they could get a pie in the electoral process (ticket to contest). Some of them give contentious statements in a bid to get attention and in an attempt to attain their goal. In a nutshell, this is political positioning. The party is keeping eyes on all such statements and developments and will deal with them in a political manner.”