8:48 pm: The rebel Congress MLAs, earlier scheduled to return to Bhopal in the evening, have reportedly cancelled their plans to return to Bhopal.
7:38 pm: Six Madhya Pradesh ministers, all loyalists of former Congress general secretary Jyotiraditya Scindia, were on Friday fired from their positions on the recommendation of CM Kamal Nath. The ministers were among 17 party MLAs who flew to Bengaluru and are expected to land in Bhopal anytime soon. Govind Singh Rajput, Tulsi Silawat, Imarti Devi, Prabhuram Choudhry, Mahendra Singh Sisodia and Pradyumna Singh Tomar were those sacked as ministers.
Earlier in the day...
The rebel Congress legislators from Congress, expected to land in Bhopal later in the evening, have demanded special security from Madhya Pradesh assembly speaker NP Prajapati, in the lead-up to their meeting scheduled for Saturday. The rebel MLAs from Congress, including six ministers, made the demand for Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) security in a letter to the speaker on Sunday.
Prajapati had asked 13 of the 22 MLAs to appear before him in Bhopal on Saturday, days after the exit of former Congress bigwig Jyotiraditya Scindia from the party and he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. At least 22 Congress MLAs were believed to be camping at a resort in Bengaluru amid tight security.
On Thursday, Madhya Pradesh cabinet minister Jitu Patwari landed in a soup after he paid a visit to the resort, accompanied by the father of one of the legislators. After intense arguments with the police officials guarding the MLAs, Patwari and his aides were taken into police custody before being released just hours later.
The police have maintained that they received the request for police security from the MLAs, who have alleged threats to themselves, after apparently withdrawing support to the Kamal Nath government. The letter, reportedly signed by the MLAs, was last week handed over to the speaker by the BJP, on the heels of Scindia sending his resignation letter to the Congress leadership.
The Congress, on its part, has accused the BJP of holding the legislators hostage in a bid to destabilise the state government. The BJP has denied the allegations, stating that both Scindia and the MLAs, many of them supporters of the former Guna MP, approached the party on their own accord.
Also read: We never approached Scindia, he came to us: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Rajat Sharma's 'Aap Ki Adalat'
