NEW DELHI, March 21 - Twenty-two rebel Congress MLAs, whose resignations from the Madhya Pradesh Assembly had led to the fall of the Kamal Nath government, joined the BJP on Saturday, national general secretary of the party Kailash Vijayvargiya said.
These leaders, along with Jyotiraditya Scindia, met BJP president JP Nadda, who welcomed their decision to join the saffron party.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to field them in the bypolls necessitated by their resignations.
These former MLAs, believed to be Scindia loyalists, met Nadda at his residence. Vijayvargiya was also present there.
The Assembly Speaker had accepted the resignations of 16 of these rebel Congress MLAs on Thursday, a day before Chief Minister Kamal Nath chose to resign after it became clear that his government had lost the majority. The Speaker had accepted the resignations of six of them earlier.
Scindia, a former Union minister, quit the Congress and joined the BJP recently.
The saffron party is likely to stake claim to form the government in Madhya Pradesh.
The Election Commission will announce the bypoll dates once the crisis brought in by the coronavirus outbreak is over.
Meanwhile, Union minister Narendra Singh Tomar said that the BJP high command will decide on the issue.
Before leaving for Bhopal, Tomar said that �there is no talk yet started on the Chief Ministership but the party high command will be deciding the issue�.
BJP has two strong contenders for the top post apart from Shivraj Singh Chouhan the former CM of the State. Narottam Mishra who has been instrumental in bringing down the government and Tomar who is a favourite of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, sources in the BJP said.
The major coup in the Congress was engineered by Jyotiraditya Scindia who hails from the same region as Tomar. The MLAs from the Chambal region openly rebelled and resigned from the Congress camp. The region of Gwalior, Guna, Bhind and Morena had enables Congress to reach one short of magic figure in 2018 elections. � Agencies
