Bhopal: A day after ex-chief minister late Kailash Joshi’s son Deepak Joshi, himself a former minister, quit BJP and joined Congress, Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, on Sunday flew to New Delhi. Sources close to the CM maintained that the visit to the national capital had no political connotations as nearly the entire top national leadership of the saffron party was out of Delhi, busy in the last stretch of May 10 Karnataka Assembly polls campaign.

With the Delhi visit happening amid growing rebellious voices of many BJP veterans in MP, the opposition Congress’s state media in-charge KK Mishra claimed that the CM was in Delhi to address his party’s top bosses’ concerns about the uncontrollable situation of dissent in the saffron party in the state.

Importantly, Joshi, the three-time former BJP MLA, after joining the Congress on Saturday targeted the MP CM. Joshi even targeted Chouhan for the death of his Covid-positive wife (Deepak Joshi’s wife) during the killer Covid wave in 2021 in the want of an ambulance.

While Joshi had quit BJP and joined the Congress, many other senior BJP leaders, including ex-MLA and poet Satyanarayan Sattan, two-times former MLA Bhawar Singh Shekhawat (both from Indore), ex-PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s nephew Anup Mishra (who has been an ex-MP minister and formerly MP and MLA from Gwalior-Chambal region) and Uma Bharti-loyalist powerful Jain community leader Mukesh Jain Dhana (from Bundelkhand region) have been talking continuously in rebellious and concerning tones over growing clout of Jyotiraditya Scindia-loyalists at the cost of party old-timers.

Senior party leaders, including former Rajya Sabha member and veteran Brahmin politician Raghunandan Sharma (who tried his best to convince Joshi not to join the Congress) and present party national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya, have expressed concern over the developing situation.

“Congress doesn’t have the power to defeat the BJP. It’s BJP only which can defeat the BJP. If the mistakes by the party organization aren’t corrected timely, then BJP will defeat the BJP,” said Vijayvargiya, who is among the 14 senior leaders deputed by the party to pacify the disgruntled leaders across the state, where assembly polls are slated by the year-end.

Party veteran and ex-Rajya Sabha member Raghunandan Sharma said: “I’ve heard that there are five prabharis (in-charges) deputed for the state party organization, but they don’t seem to be running the organization effectively, which is reflected by the growing communication gap in the state party.

Amid the presence of the five prabharis, the durdasha (plight) within the party seems to resemble the misery of Draupadi, who had five husbands.” Importantly, the CM had met in Bhopal on Saturday, many senior leaders of the party, including disgruntled former MLAs Satyanarayan Sattan and Bhawar Singh Shekhawat.