Rebel prince

Kamal Nath, Digvijaya Singh and the high command are equally responsible for Scindia’s exit

- SRAVANI SARKAR

IT WAS AROUND 11pm on March 9. Holi bonfires across Bhopal were dying out slowly, just like the fortunes of the 15-month-old Kamal Nath government. After an informal cabinet meeting, 22 ministers handed over their resignations to the chief minister in a last-ditch attempt to save the government. Nath, who had gone to Delhi to meet Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, returned abruptly after 19 MLAs—including six ministers, close to senior leader Jyotiraditya Scindia—deserted the party and flew down to Bengaluru.

Although Nath blamed the BJP for the crisis, he knew that Scindia had been plotting to topple his government. And, his apprehensions proved right the very next day. When the entire nation was celebrating Holi, Scindia was in Delhi, meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. After an hour-long meeting, he announced his resignation from the Congress on Twitter. Soon came reports from Bengaluru that the 19 rebel MLAs, too, had resigned, leaving Nath with a minority government. By late afternoon, the number of resignations went up to 22.

BJP leaders like former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, state president V.D. Sharma and state in-charge Vinay Sahasrabuddhe were playing Holi with party workers at the BJP headquarters in Bhopal, while Scindia was meeting Modi and Shah in Delhi. The Congress headquarters, located 3km away, wore a deserted look. Ministers and MLAs returning from Nath’s office were tightlipped, and phone calls went unanswered. None of them perhaps expected this crisis after having survived a similar one a few days ago. On March 3, ten MLAs—six from the Congress, one independent, two from the Bahujan Samaj Party and one from the Samajwadi Party—had moved to a hotel in Haryana, in an alleged attempt to sabotage the Nath government.