Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath today resigned from the post, hours ahead of the Supreme Court-directed floor test in the state assembly. Addressing a press conference ahead of the scheduled floor test at 2 PM, Nath said that the BJP had held the Congress MLAs captive and accused the saffron party of murder of democracy.
“I have decided to tender my resignation to the Governor today,” he told reporters in Bhopal.
Earlier this morning, Nath chaired a meeting of the Madhya Pradesh Congress Legislature Party (CLP) at his residence in Bhopal after it became certain that the numbers were clearly stacked against his government, which had been thrown into a minority following the exit of 22 MLAs believed to be loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia.
The top court had on Thursday ordered the Madhya Pradesh Assembly Speaker to conduct a floor test by 5 PM on Friday to end the week-long political uncertainty in the state following the resignation of 22 Congress MLAs. The Speaker said a day ahead of the floor test that the resignations of the 16 MLAs, which had been kept in abeyance, had been accepted. These MLAs are believed to be of Jyotiraditya Scindia’s camp who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party on March 11.
In the 230-member Madhya Pradesh Assembly, the actual strength of the House at present is 228 as two seats are lying vacant. With the resignation of 16 more MLAs, which was accepted by Speaker last night, the strength of Congress has come down to 92 from 108. Earlier, six ministers had resigned which brought down the ruling party’s strength from 114 to 108.