Kamal Nath says rebel MLAs in touch with him

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath's reported claim that he is in touch with his legislators holed up in a resort in Bengaluru for the last 10 days, will finally be put to test in the state assembly that will witness a floor test on Friday.

Kamal Nath claimed in an interview that the MLAs "called me to say that they have been forced to record those videos...that is why I'm confident about my numbers."

Referring to the 16 Congress MLAs who have tendered resignations to the state assembly speaker as "my MLAs", Nath said no sitting Congress MLA had yet joined the BJP. "These are my MLAs until proven otherwise...If these MLAs were loyal to Scindia, then they would have joined BJP as soon as Scindia joined BJP," he argued.

He said the rebel MLAs had so far only tendered resignations from the Assembly and not left the Congress. The ongoing developments were "just an event and not a crisis", the chief minister claimed. The Supreme Court had directed that the floor test be conducted by Friday evening and that the rebels were free to attend the House or stay away from the test.

Earlier the court had offered to create conditions to ensure verification of whether resignation by rebel Congress MLAs was truly voluntary and suggested appointing an observer in Bengaluru who can connect with the Madhya Pradesh Assembly Speaker on video conferencing for him to make a decision.