A senior cabinet minister Anoop Mishra has already quit, after his son and close relatives were found to be involved in a murder. The murder was the outcome of a land dispute. Though the Minister's name does not figure in the FIR and nor is any of the witnesses alleging that he was present at the place — a village in Morena district of the state — yet he had resigned owning “moral responsibility”.

Mishra was a powerful and senior Minister, besides being the nephew of BJP veteran Atal Bihari Vajpayee. His resignation has, understandably, brought pressure to bear upon several other Ministers who are in the dock for various offences.

What has made things even more difficult for the Ministers was the call by the BJP's general secretary in charge for Madhya Pradesh Ananth Kumar to the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan to get rid of “tainted ministers”. This advice, made in public, was reiterated by the party's national President Nitin Gadkari and subsequently by its state chief Prabhat Jha, who called for “integrity and honesty:” in governance.

And the Madhya Pradesh government has quite a few Ministers, who unambiguously fall under the category of “tainted”. Graft cases against at least eight Ministers are pending with the state Lokayukta. These include heavy weights like Kailash Vijayvargiya, Jayant Malaiya and Ajay Vishnoi.

In fact, even the Chief Minister is facing a Lokayukta probe over what has come to be known as the “Dumper scam”. In November 2007, it was discovered that four heavy earth-moving equipments costing upward of Rs. 2 crores were purchased and registered in the name of Ms. Sadhna Singh, the wife of the chief minister in the Rewa RTO. To hide her identity, her husband's name was shown as “Mr. SR Singh” and her address as “JP associates, Rewa” in the official records of the Transport department.

When this news became public, the chief minister admitted that his wife had indeed purchased the vehicles but that they were sold to JP Associates, a mining company based at Rewa. This when, in his affidavit filed along with his nomination papers for the bye-elections in Budhni assembly constituency, the chief minister had shown his and his wives total assets as Rs. 2.30 lakhs in bank deposits and Rs. 40 thousand in cash. The Lokayukta probe has not reached to any conclusion even almost three years after the registration of the case.

Even more brazen is the case of Industries Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya. On the orders of an Indore court, the Lokayukta is probing his involvement in the sale of Rs. 100 crore worth of Municipal land in 2004, when he was the Mayor of Indore. The court issued the order on a private complaint filed by a veteran Congressman. Vijayvargiya's co-accused is Ramesh Mendola, presently BJP MLA and a close aide of Vijayvargiya. At that time, Mendola too was in the Municipal Corporation, as member of Mayor-in-council. Additionally, Municipal Corporation officials and all the (then) 69 Councilors have also been made accused in the case.

The three-acre plot of prime land was allotted to an Industrial Unit in 1980 on lease for a period of 30 years. The lease is to end later this year. However, in 2004, the industrial unit sold the land — then worth Rs. 65 crores — to a Housing Co-operative headed by Mendola for a measly Rs. 1.28 crores. It was not long before that Mendola applied for change of land use from Industrial to Residential and his request was granted by the Municipal Corporation in a jiffy. He went on to build a posh residential complex on the land.

Besides Ministers, scores of MLAs of the BJP are involved in one case or the other. Former Revenue Minister Kamal Patel is in jail on the charge of “conspiracy for murder”. Another MLA Ms. Asha Rani Singh is absconding after being charged of the murder of her maid. Her husband — Veer Vikram Singh 'Bhaiya Raja' — a don of the Bundelkhand region of the state is behind the bars for the last three months. He has been charged in the case of the murder of his niece.

Though the Chief Minister is yet to respond to the “cleanse the party” call of his senior leaders, it is clear that he is under tremendous pressure. And so are the Ministers facing charges of various descriptions. (IPA)