NEW DELHI, 23 August 2004 — The political crisis in Madhya Pradesh deepened further yesterday with as many as 24 out of 35 ministers in the state tendering their resignations following the footsteps of Chief Minister Uma Bharti.
Bharti had Saturday sent her resignation to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president in the wake of a Karnataka court issuing a warrant for her arrest in connection with a rioting case dating back to 1994. Bharti has been charged with inciting communal violence in the town of Hubli in Karnataka. A magistrate in Hubli had issued the warrant against Bharti and 21 others who had allegedly defied a ban and hoisted the national flag at the Idgah grounds there on the Independence Day in 1994. The incident had triggered violence in which six people were killed.
Bharti would have to personally appear before the Hubli court to apply for bail, Borkar said. A Karnataka police team left for Bhopal yesterday to serve an arrest warrant on Bharti.
Karnataka police chief S.N. Borkar told IANS here the team, led by the Dharwad district superintendent of police, will reach the Madhya Pradesh capital today.
“If she is not available, the warrant will be handed over to her secretary and a copy of the same will be pasted at her residence in Bhopal,” Borkar said.
Meanwhile, the firebrand leader told reporters in Indore yesterday she would withdraw her resignation only if the court absolved her of the charges or if the Karnataka government dropped the charges.
In Bhopal, some ministers faxed their resignations to the BJP high command or submitted it to state BJP chief Kailash Joshi, while others addressed it to Bharti instead of sending it to the governor as is the norm.
“Some ministers have given their resignation to (the national president M.) Venkaiah Naidu, some to (state party chief) Kailash Joshi and some to the chief minister,” a senior BJP leader told IANS here.
The resignation spree started Saturday night and by yesterday afternoon the number reached to 24, despite the chief minister advising the ministers against stepping down.
Industries Minister Kailash Chawla, however, said it was their moral duty to step down from their posts as the chief minister had already resigned.
“There is no use if the other ministers continue in their posts. Now the ball is in the court of party’s central leadership.”
“Uma Bharti had asked the ministers not the resign. She had asked all the ministers to continue with their work,” said Kailash Vijayvergiya, the state PWD minister.
Gauri Shankar Shejwar, another minister in Bharti’s Cabinet, however asked his colleagues not to resign, saying the BJP parliamentary board was not going to accept Bharti’s resignation.
The resignations also came ahead of a crucial BJP parliamentary board meeting today to decide whether Bharti should continue in her post or not.
The warrant against the chief minister has taken the wind out of the sails of the party’s campaign against “tainted” ministers in the Congress-led government in New Delhi.
A Karnataka court will deliver its judgment regarding the non-bailable warrant against Bharti today.
