Madhya Pradesh elections: Ahead of the upcoming Madhya Pradesh elections that are due later this year, MLA Virendra Raghuwanshi on Thursday announced his resignation from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), claiming he was “ignored” in the party. The resignation made him the fourth senior BJP leader of the Gwalior-Chambal region, a Scindia turf, to quit over the past few days, reports The Indian Express.
In his resignation letter, Raghuwanshi, who represents Kolaras assembly seat in Shivpur district, said he had informed about his “pain” in the last three-five years to the chief minister (Shivraj Singh Chouhan) and the top leadership, however, no one took note of it.
“In the Gwalior-Chambal division, party workers like me were being ignored by the newly arrived BJP members though we worked dedicatedly for the party in the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha polls,” he further claimed.
Further, Raghuwanshi directly attacked Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, accusing him of “paying lip-service” on the issue of farmer loan waivers.
Targeting Scindia, who in 2020 quit the Congress following which a number of Congress legislators also resigned and BJP, Raghuwanshi alleged that when the Congress government collapsed in 2020, Scindia had said that farmers’ loans of Rs 2 lakh were not being waived as promised. However, as the BJP came to power, Scindia did not even speak about loan waiver.
Raghuwanshi also talked about “big scams” in cooperative banks of farmers across the state, but especially Shivpuri district, “making a dent in their deposits”.
The MLA added that desperate farmers were still lining up to get their deposits out, three years after the scam allegedly surfaced. “The farmers are not being paid their deposits, but the government is not taking any action,” he said, adding that he had also raised the topic in the Assembly, in vain.
He also attacked the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government saying that they try to take votes in the name of gau mata (cows), but in reality, he alleged, do nothing.
Most of the cow sheds were not operational, or had not gotten funds in four-five months, he said. “Due to this, cows are still dying on the streets.”
Although Raghuwanshi has not disclosed his future move, it is likely that he will join the Congress, as other three to leave before him did.
Earlier, Madhya Pradesh MLA Samandar Patel returned to the Congress on August 19, alleging “suffocation” in the ruling party.
“I left the party with Maharaj (Scindia). But soon, I felt suffocated within the BJP. I was not invited to any events. I was not given respect and a position of power,” Patel told The Indian Express.
On June 14, Shivpuri BJP leader Baijnath Singh Yadav cut ties with Scindia and former BJP Shivpuri district vice president Rakesh Kumar Gupta followed suit on June 26.