2020 Madhya Pradesh political crisis


On 10 March 2020, when Jyotiraditya Scindia resigned from Indian National Congress, 22 MLAs who supported him also resigned. They sent their resignations by email to the Speaker of Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly, Narmada Prasad Prajapati and Governor Lalji Tandon from the hotel of Bengaluru.

Background

After the 2018 Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, no party got majority although Indian National Congress was the single largest party in the assembly. Indian National Congress formed the government with the help of one BSP MLA and one SP MLA and four independent MLAs.
However, on 5th March 2020, 10 MLAs, 6 Congress members, 2 BSP members 1 SP member and 1 Independent, flew to Delhi overnight, without any prior plans. However 6 MLAs initially returned. The remaining 4 MLAs then flew to Bengaluru, where congress MLA Hardeep Dang resigned. The remaining three MLAs returned soon, however they denied the claims made by Congress leaders that they were a part of horse-trading.
On 10 March 2020, Senior leader of INC, Jyotiraditya Scindia suddenly went to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Amit Shah, Home Minister of India. After meeting them, at around 11:30 am, he resigned from the Congress party, saying that he felt very guilty while working for Congress.
Next day, at around 3:00 pm, he joined Bharatiya Janata Party in the presence of Jagat Prakash Nadda, National President of Bharatiya Janata Party.
After joining the party, he slammed Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Kamal Nath and other Congress leaders for not giving the importance in the party. Throughout his press conference, he didn't mention the names of the Nehru-Gandhi Family. After joining the party, he was given the ticket of Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh by Shivraj Singh Chouhan.
Both the parties reached Supreme Court to ask for a floor test in Madhya Pradesh and the Supreme Court said that the floor test in Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly should be done on 20 March 2020 by 5:00 pm. On 20 March 2020, at around 12:00 pm, during a press conference, Chief Minister Kamal Nath resigned as CM. After that, on 23 March 2020, Shivraj Singh Chouhan took oath as CM.

List of Members who Resigned

Outcome

A new government was formed by Shivraj Singh Chouhan as Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
On 21 March 2020, in Delhi, all the 22 rebel Congress MLAs joined the Bharatiya Janata Party, in presence of Bharatiya Janata Party's national president Jagat Prakash Nadda. Jyotiraditya Scindia, Dharmendra Pradhan, Narottam Mishra and many of the senior BJP leaders were also present.