Bhopal: The last cabinet meeting of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government drew attention on Wednesday after ministers who were denied a party ticket by the BJP for the state polls gave the meeting a miss.
Cabinet ministers Kusum Mahdele, Maya Singh and Minister of State Harsh Singh were among those who did not turn up. Both Singh and Mahdele were denied tickets over non-performance as MLAs.
While Singh did not publicly dissent over the denial of ticket, Mahdele had expressed her resentment and even prepared to contest as an independent candidate. The party, however, managed to stop her at the eleventh hour.
Even though some ministers chose to skip the meeting, Surya Prakash Meena was in attendance even though she was denied a ticket. The MoS was reportedly apprehensive of the possible denial of ticket and hence, had written a letter to the party wishing not to contest polls.
When asked about the absence of ministers, public relations minister Narottam Mishra said, “I am not sure as I had no communication with the two leaders.”
Flaying the Congress for criticising the cabinet meet, Mishra claimed that it was convened to address urgent issues, including foodgrain procurement, outbreak of Zika and other diseases, and availability of fertilizers. Mishra added that the Chief Minister has directed Agriculture minister Gaurisankar Bisen to visit New Delhi to discuss with the Centre the availability of fertilizers in MP.
Chief Minister Chouhan said, “We can’t be selfish by waiting for the results. So we held the meeting to discuss urgent issues including procurement of soybean and paddy, availability of fertilizers and rumours surrounding the Zika outbreak in MP.
“The cabinet meeting was promoted in a way that the government was concerned about farmers and public, whereas they didn’t do much in the past 15 years. So what will they achieve through this pretentious concern in the last five days?” MPCC president Kamal Nath had said in a statement.
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