BHOPAL: Bringing the five-day suspense to an end, former Madhya Pradesh minister and one of the four missing Congress MLAs Bisahulal Singh returned to Bhopal on Sunday evening.
Accompanied by MP tourism minister Surendra Baghel, the three-time Congress MLA from Anuppur seat, Bisahu Lal Singh met with Chief Minister Kamal Nath and announced there was no threat to the state government.
“Humko koi bandhak nahi banaya thaa, hum toh tirthyatra par idhar udhar ghoom rahe they, hum sarkar ke saath hain aur sarkar ko koi khatra nahi hai (I wasn’t held captive, but was on a pilgrimage. I’m with the government and there is no threat to the Congress regime headed by Kamal Nath),” he told journalists after meeting the CM in Bhopal.
Singh was among the four MLAs (three Congress and one independent MLA) who as per Congress leaders, including ex-CM Digvijaya Singh and MP minister Jeetu Patwari, had been abducted by BJP leaders five days back from Gurugram and then flown to Bengaluru to topple the Kamal Nath government, which enjoys a thin majority in the 230-member Vidhan Sabha.
When asked by journalists about him being inducted into the cabinet by the CM, the tribal strongman Bisahu Lal Singh said, “Please ask that question to CM only.”
The former minister’s return to Congress camp came a day after another missing MLA, Surendra Singh ‘Shera Bhaiya’ (independent legislator) returned from Bengaluru and met the CM, later announcing no threat to the state government.
But two missing Congress MLAs, including HS Dang (who reportedly resigned recently from Vidhan Sabha recently) and Raghuraj Kansana, are yet to return from Bengaluru.
Responding to media queries about Bisahul Lal Singh’s claims that he wasn’t abducted or held captive to topple the Congress regime in MP, higher education minister Jeetu Patwari (who had earlier claimed that Singh was kidnapped by BJP leaders) said “He (Singh) is our senior tribal leader. His return has exposed that BJP leaders, including ex-CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, ex-ministers Narottam Mishra’s conspiracy to topple our government.”
In another significant development, BJP MLA from Maihar seat Narayan Tripathi met with CM on Sunday evening for the third time in four days. “I met the CM for a short while and took up the issue of making my constituency Maihar a separate district. I also demanded that a resolution be passed to create a separate Vidhya Pradesh out of MP,” said Tripathi.
When asked whom he would back in case of a show of strength in the Vidhan Sabha, the former Congressman Tripathi said, it will be known when the time comes.
Tripathi is among the two BJP MLAs (Beohari MLA Sharad Kol being the other one) who had voted along with Congress MLAs over a crucial bill in the Vidhan Sabha in July 2019.
His recent meetings with the CM had triggered speculations about him quitting the State Assembly membership and later contesting from the same seat as Congress candidate. He, however, has been denying about resigning from the Assembly membership.
CM Kamal Nath flying to Delhi amid the possibility of cabinet expansion
In other related developments, CM Kamal Nath was expected to fly to Delhi late on Sunday evening.
In Delhi, he is likely to meet former union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and also attend party meetings to finalize candidates for the March 26 Rajya Sabha polls.
Three RS seats will be up for polls from MP.
Also, a senior Congress leader told The New Indian Express that a cabinet expansion/reshuffle is likely soon to take care of concerns of disgruntled Congress and allied MLAs, but it’s not clear whether it will happen before Holi or after the Vidhan Sabha budget session next month.