After learning of this unprecedented development, Chief Minister Kamal Nath rushed to Bhopal from Delhi, cutting short his Holi holiday. After reaching Bhopal he summoned all ministers (i.e. other than those who were at Bengaluru) to this residence and discussions on the strategy to face the crisis began. The crisis hit the Congress and CM Nath just when they thought they weathered earlier the horse-trading storm.

All ministers present at the meeting handed over their resignations to the Chief Minister. “We have requested the chief minister to reconstitute the cabinet and tackle the situation created by the BJP. The government is safe and would run for five years,” Minister for Public Relations PC Sharma told journalists.

Nath issued a statement saying that he will “not let the forces trying to create instability with the help of mafia succeed”. A meeting of the Congress legislature party was convened in the evening and Governor Lalji Tandon cut short his vacation and returned to Bhopal.

“A true Congress leader will stay with the party,” said former CM Digvijaya Singh. Seventeen MLAs, including six ministers – all supporters of Scindia, went incommunicado and flew to Bengaluru. This came when two other Congress MLAs were already missing and were believed to be in the Karnataka capital. The Congress was caught completely unawares by the Scindia camp and the party came to know of the development only after the group landed at Bengaluru. And it was said that it was not the BJP but the factionalism within the party that was to be blamed for the crisis.

Thereafter, political developments moved at a rapid pace. Scindia first met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and then both drove to the PM house. After Scindia’s meeting with Prime Minister Modi, reports were circulated saying that he had decided to sever his ties with the Congress and join the BJP. It was also rumoured that he has been offered a berth in the union cabinet. But though Jyotiraditya formally quit the Congress he did not join the BJP. After he wrote a letter to the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi resigning from the primary membership of the Congress, he was promptly expelled from the party.

The BJP, on its part, convened a meeting of its legislature party at Bhopal. It was indicated earlier that the legislature party will elect former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan as its leader. But it seems that this agenda of the meeting remained unfulfilled after a section of the party MLAs raised the slogan, “Party ka neta kaisa ho, Narottam Mishra jaisa ho”. Mishra, a cabinet minister in the former Shivraj Singh Chouhan government, had played a key role in destabilising the Congress government. Later, it was decided to fly the party legislators to Delhi, from where they were taken to an undisclosed destination.

Meanwhile, Kamal Nath and other Congress leaders claimed that their government still commands majority support, which they will prove on the floor of the House.

A question which is being asked is why Scindia had to take the decision of walking out of the Congress along with his supporters. On March 6, Mahendra Singh Sisodia, a minister and a close confidante of Scindia had said that the Kamal Nath government will face a crisis if Scindia is ignored. There is no doubt that after Vidhan Sabha elections in 2018, Scindia was consistently ignored by the state party leadership. His followers wanted that he should be appointed President of the State Congress, a position which was held by Kamal Nath.

Somewhere along the way, Scindia began speaking like an opposition leader. This infuriated the Chief Minister, who publicly rebuked Scindia.

It may be recalled that more than half a century back, Jyotiraditya’s grandmother Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia had parted company with the Congress in almost similar circumstances. At that time, too, she was ignored and humiliated by DP Mishra, who headed the Congress government. In 1967, she, along with 36 Congress MLAs, quit the Congress leading to the overthrow of the Mishra government. Is history repeating itself? (IPA Service)