Lokayukta Enquiry Against Minister Bhupendra Singh Causing Turmoil In Madhya Pradesh BJP

BHOPAL Lokayukta enquiry against senior Minister Bhupendra Singh came as explosion in the political circles of Madhya Pradesh. Bhupendra Singh is considered to be very close to the state Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Besides, Lokayukta Chief Minister has also received serious complaints against Bhupendra Singh from two Ministers and about half a dozen party MLAs. All of them and also Bhupendra Singh belong to Sagar district. Their complaint is that all police and civil officials act only on direction of Bhupendra Singh

Bhupendra Singh gives the impression that he enjoys the confidence of Chief Minister. The Chief Minister held two sittings with the complaining Ministers and MLAs in the presence of Bhupendra Singh. Ultimately Chief Minister warned them that in view of coming elections they must resolve their differences otherwise they will adversely affect elections.

While Bhupendra was still facing hostility from party colleagues another calamity came in the form of Lokayukta enquiry. Lokayukta has ordered enquiry after he received complaints from Congress leader and advocate J. P. Dhanopia and other Congress leaders. In their complaint they gave evidence of wealth disproportionate of his known sources of income. What is surprising is not the complaint but the speed with which Lokayukta decided to order enquiry.

Ordinarily complaints against Ministers are kept pending for several years. But in this case enquiry was ordered within two days of its filing. Observers point out that it was done to prevent Bhupendra Singh from becoming president of the state party unit. It is learnt that the term of present occupant is over. It is also learnt that Chief Minister is not keen to give extension to him. By manipulating enquiry they will achieve their objective.

Two unexpected developments took place in the state. One such development was the confession by former Chief Minister and Rajya Sabha member Digvijaya Singh that “Scindia joining BJP was personal shock to me”. Talking to media at Indore he said that he had never imagined that the senior Congress leader Jyotiraditya Scindia would switch over to the BJP and his decision came as a personal shock to him.

Singh claimed that he had received some tip-off about ‘some people being sold’ that later resulted in toppling of the then Kamal Nath-led Congress government.

“We had however never imagined that Scindiaji would be one of them and we are sorry about it. He had an energetic leadership in the Congress party while there were all the possibilities of his leading us. The Nehru-Gandhi family including Soniaji, Rahulji and Priyankaji had given him all the respect, made him minister twice along with AICC general secretary as he had family terms with them, but he left” Singh said.

He added that what hurts more is Scindia’s statements after leaving the party just for getting a mere post in BJP.

“An old video of Scindia is going viral in which he had called Shivraj Singh Chouhan that his hands are full of blood of farmers (in Mandsaur police firing incident) but now he is sharing the dais with Shivraj. It is not only betrayal but being opportunistic as well” Singh added.

He also targeted Chouhan and his wife for alleged “Dumper Scam” along with alleging corruption in e-tendering, sand mining, VYAPAM and others. ‘After corruption in construction in Ujjain, the government had given the land of Mahakal Temple to a trust associated with RSS that is running business there, but no money is deposited to the temple’s account” Singh said.

He alleged that Shivraj Singh has made a fool of Narendra Modi by poor construction in Mahakal Lok.

It appears that Madhya Pradesh will witness multi -party contest during the coming Assembly elections. Besides AAP Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) from South is all set to enter Madhya Pradesh. If it finally happens it will be first party from South India to enter Hindi speaking state.

The BRS has been sponsored by Telangana Chief Minister. Many politicians have joined the Samithi after leaving their respective parties. (IPA Service)