Digvijaya Singh has every right to meet Congress MLAs in Bengaluru, BJP muzzling democracy: PC Sharma

Amid the preventive arrest of senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh in Bengaluru after he was not allowed to meet the rebel party MLAs from Madhya Pradesh, state Law Minister PC Sharma on Wednesday termed it an attempt to muzzle democracy by the BJP.

Sharma said that Singh, being Congress' candidate for the Rajya Sabha, had every right to meet the rebel Congress MLAs

"Digvijaya Singh is a Rajya Sabha MP and also the candidate for the upcoming elections to the Upper House. He has every right to meet the candidates for asking for votes. They are trying to strangulate the Constitution, it seems even the Centre is involved in this now and the whole of BJP is trying to muzzle democracy," Sharma told ANI here.

"They used to say they have security issue in coming here (Bhopal) but there (Bengaluru) they have security, what is the difficulty in letting them meet Digvijaya Singhji there," he added.

Upon being questioned about the strategy Congress will follow after this Sharma said, "The whole of Congress workers from around the country will go there and will gherao the hotel and sit on protest in Bengaluru. There is no danger to the government as out of those (rebel MLAs) 16 will support us while some might support BJP."

Meanwhile, Singh, Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar and Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Sajjan Singh Verma on Wednesday reached the Commissioner's office in Bengaluru.

They were placed under preventive arrest, earlier today.

Singh landed in Bengaluru in the morning and was placed under preventive arrest after he sat on a dharna near Ramada Hotel allegedly for not being allowed by police to meet the 21 Congress rebel MLAs lodged in the hotel.

The development comes amid the political crisis in Madhya Pradesh in the wake of the exit of Jyotiraditya Scindia from the Congress party.

Scindia's departure was followed by 22 Congress MLAs resigning from the party as well as from the state legislative Assembly.

The resignation of these many MLAs has left the Kamal Nath government below the majority mark.