Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath resigns, BJP set to form govt

Congress leader Kamal Nath resigned as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh on Friday. The resignation ends the 15-month tenure of the Congress in Madhya Pradesh and paves the way for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to return to power.

The resignation came a few hours before the test of strength in the House as directed by the Supreme Court. 

Governor Lalji Tandon accepted the resignation of Nath and asked him to continue as acting chief minister till alternative arrangements are made.

In an emotional address before tendering his resignation, Nath said, “In the past 15 months, I tried my best to transform the state. In my 40-45 years political career, I believed in progressive politics. The people of Madhya Pradesh gave me five years to bring the state on the right path, for it to have a new identity. The BJP got 15 years. Until today, I got 15 months. The BJP couldn’t digest my welfare schemes. From Day 1, the party scripted the conspiracy. Still, we worked. Today, it lured 22 MLAs and held them hostage,” he said.

Nath also hit out at former colleague Jyotiraditya Scindia, who crossed over to the BJP 10 days ago. “Everyone saw how crores were spent. How a democratically elected government was brought down by the BJP, which lured a power-hungry, ambitious ‘Maharaja’, who was rejected by voters, and 22 greedy MLAs,” said Nath. 

He also said he will continue to fight for the people of Madhya Pradesh. Speaker N.P. Prajapati accepted the resignations of 16 rebel Congress MLAs late Thursday night. Earlier, the speaker had accepted the resignations of six MLAs; all the 22 legislatures.

With the speaker accepting the resignation of all 22 Congress MLAs, the party just has 92 legislators. The BJP has 107 seats in the House, which now has an effective strength of 206, with the majority mark being 104. The BSP has two MLAs, while the SP has one and there are four independents. The BJP is set to form the government. Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who is one of the front-runners for the top job (CM), advised the Congress to introspect.