The Congress party in Gujarat flew off most of the party’s MLAs to Bengaluru on Friday night after accusing BJP President Amit Shah of engineering defections in Gujarat by “money and muscle power”.Congress is shaken after the exit of six of its legislators in 24 hours, with one more likely to leave.
As many as 44 of the remaining 51 Congress MLAs were taken to Bengaluru. They will be staying at Clarks Exotica Resorts, which is a 15-minute drive from Bengaluru airport.
“What they did in Goa, Manipur and in Bihar. They are trying to do the same in Gujarat. Our legislators are being threatened or offered money. People like an IPS officer who was behind bars for 8-9 years in fake encounter case are being used to kidnap our MLAs, offer money or threaten our legislators. There are insecurity and environment of terror. So our legislators are being moved to safety,” Arjun Modhvadia, senior Congress leader, told reporters at Ahmedabad airport.
It is said that it has been done in an attempt to prevent any more legislators from resigning and defecting to the BJP. The 8 August Rajya Sabha polls are also near and veteran leader and Sonia Gandhi’s political secretary, Ahmed Patel is contesting from Gujarat. Thus, it was safe to keep the rest of the flock far from allurements.
Three MLAs including Balwantsinh Rajput, Tejashree Patel, and PI Patel, quit on Thursday. They joined the BJP, while three more submitted their resignations to Speaker Ramanlal Vora on Friday. However, they did not join the BJP till evening. Those who resigned on Friday are veteran Congress legislator Ramsinh Parmar, MLA from Thasra constituency and chairman of the prestigious Amul Dairy, Chhanabhai Chaudhary, MLA from Vansda constituency, and Mansinh Chauhan from Balasinor.
