Had Turned Down Deputy CM's Post Offered by Congress after 2018 MP Polls: Jyotiraditya Scindia

BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia on Sunday said that although the Congress's top leadership had offered to make him the deputy chief minister of Madhya Pradesh after the 2018 state polls, when he was still in that party, he had turned down the offer as he decided to work for the people. He alleged that the Congress had betrayed the people of the state with false promises to come to power.

"The Congress's top leadership had offered me deputy chief minister's post. Instead, I decided to work for the people," the BJP Rajya Sabha member said while addressing his party's three-day long membership drive, which will end here on Monday. This is for the first time that Scindia has publicly admitted that he was offered this post by the Congress.

In March this year, veteran Congress leader Digvijaya Singh had said that Scindia was offered the post of MP deputy chief minister, but Kamal Nath had refused to accept a"chela". Scindia said, "I understood that Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh will ruin the Congress government in 15 months.

The Congress betrayed the people with false promises like waiver of farm loan in 10 days in order to come to power in the state." "Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi had promised that farm loans of up to to Rs 2 lakh will be waived within 10 days or else the chief minister will be sent back on the eleventh day," he said.

"Congress made false promises to come to the power in the state," he alleged. Scindia had quit the Congress in March this year and later joined the BJP.

On the Congress's agitation against the BJP's membership drive in Gwalior, Scindia said, "At least they (Congress leaders) came out of their houses to protest against BJP's drive five months after losing the government in MP."

With an eye on the by-elections to 27 assembly constituencies in Madhya Pradesh, especially in Gwalior-Chambal region of the state that accounts for 16 of the seseats, the ruling BJP has launched the membership drive here on Saturday.

Twenty-two rebel Congress MLAs in Madhya Pradesh, mostly from the Scindia camp, resigned in March, reducing the 15-month-old dispensation led by Kamal Nath to a minority and paving the way for the BJP to form the government in the state.

These former MLAs had later joined the BJP. The BJP then sent Scindia to Rajya Sabha, while many of his loyalists got important portfolios in Shivraj Singh Chouhan's cabinet.

Last month, three more Congress MLAs in the state resigned and joined the saffron party, taking their number to 25, while two assembly seats had fallen vacant due to the demise of legislators. The Congress now has 89 MLAs in the House, while the ruling BJP has 107. The effective strength of the 230-member House has come down to 203 due to the resignations and deaths of legislators.