Ajay Singh asks his mother to resolve matters; BJP seeks his

A day after his mother accused him and his brother of forcing her out of house, Leader of Opposition in Madhya Pradesh Ajay Singh today said she had become a "puppet in the hands of unscrupulous elements" in the family.

Late in the evening, BJP leaders approached the governor, demanding that Singh be sacked as the Leader of Opposition.

"It is a sad day for any family when personal matters are dragged into open...Worse, when the enemy lurks within and the motivation for public posturing is purely political," the Congress leader told reporters at his residence here.

Saroj Kumari (83), the mother of Abhimanyu Singh and Ajay Singh and the wife of Congress stalwart late Arjun Singh, yesterday filed a complaint in a magistrate's court here against her sons.

"For my mother, I have a simple message. Free yourself from the clutches of people who tutor and terrorise you in the name of love and concern. Let us sit together and resolve matters without the indignity of a public trial," he said.

"My mother is old, not helpless, and far from destitute. Following the demise of my father, she has stubbornly refused my offer of a home with us in Bhopal. Instead, she has chosen to become a puppet in the hands of unscrupulous elements within the family," Singh claimed.

Without naming anyone, he said they have fomented trouble and widened the rift.

"I have made several attempts to reach out to her and offered her any assistance she might require, only to be rebuffed with stony silence and refusal to sort out contentious issues without third party intervention," he said.

"Out of respect for the memory of my departed father, and the legacy he so painstakingly created, I shall refrain from elaborating any further," the Congress leader said.

The allegations made by his mother in her court complaint were "pernicious fabrications", Singh added.

Saroj Kumari yesterday filed a complaint alleging that her sons Abhimanyu Singh and Ajay Singh were harassing her and had forced her out of the family house in Bhopal.

The complaint, filed in the magistrate's court here under the Protection of Women From Domestic Violence Act, will be heard on July 19.

Earlier in the day, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan termed as "height of cheap behaviour" Ajay Singh's claim yesterday that the BJP government was behind the dispute.

The Congress leader had alleged that the dispute in his family was the outcome of "BJPs conspiracy".

"How can Singh blame the government saying it has done something because of which his mother turned against him? This is the height of cheap behaviour ("ghatiyapan")," Chouhan told reporters.

He advised the Congress leader to reach out to his mother and bring her back home.

Late in the evening, the state BJP petitioned governor Anandiben Patel, seeking that Ajay Singh should sacked as the Leader of Opposition of the state Assembly.

BJP leader Prabhat Jha and Bhopal MP Alok Sanjar handed over a memorandum to this effect to Patel's ADC Vinayak Verma, as the governor was out of town.

"Singh's ill-treatment to his mother, who herself had complained to the court about the domestic violence she faced, is unbecoming of the LoP," Jha said.