'MP govt in minority': BJP asks for urgent Assembly session; Congress claims saffron party trying to destabilise Kamal Nath govt

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday said it will write to Governor of Madhya Pradesh Anandiben Patel to demand a special session of the Assembly at which the Kamal Nath-led Congress government must prove its majority. The BJP has claimed that the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh is in minority, demanding that Chief Minister Kamal Nath prove majority support in the House. [caption id=“attachment_4447205” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath. PTI[/caption] Leader of Opposition in Assembly Gopal Bhargava said the BJP will ask the governor to convene a special session of the state Assembly “to discuss important issues and test the Congress government’s strength” in the House. “I am writing a letter to the governor to convene a special session of Madhya Pradesh Assembly session shortly. We want a discussion on important issues like the farm loan waiver and to test the government’s strength,” Bhargava said. He claimed that instead of debating issues in the Assembly, the Congress was dumping papers at former chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s residence, alleging that loans of 21 lakh farmers in Madhya Pradesh had been waived. Follow LIVE updates on the exit polls and Lok Sabha elections here The BJP demand comes a day after nearly all exit polls predicted a thumping victory for the saffron party in the Lok Sabha election. They forecast that the BJP will win 20 of the 24 Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh , a state it lost to the Congress in the Assembly election in December by a thin margin. In the 2018 Assembly election, the Congress had won 114 seats in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly, one short of the halfway mark in the 230-seat House. The BJP had come a close second with 109 seats. The Congress formed the government with support from Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party and Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party. Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was quoted as saying by NDTV: “We will not try to dislodge the government, but the Congress is a divided house. They are in minority and even the minority is divided.” The Congress, however, on Monday accused the BJP of attempting to destabilise its government in Madhya Pradesh through “corrupt practices”. “They are trying to negate the mandate of people of Madhya Pradesh given in favour of the Congress in Assembly elections a few months ago, and the people will not forgive them for this,” said Congress general secretary in-charge of Madhya Pradesh Deepak Babariya, adding that the BJP was voted out of power due “malgovernance”. With inputs from PTI