Former chief ministers Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh chose to keep away from the swearing-in ceremony of the newly appointed ministers on Thursday. The other Congress MLAs too gave the ceremony a miss.
Sources informed that the two ex-CMs were invited to the ceremony and for them chairs were also kept reserved in the Raj Bhavan, but for the obvious reasons, the two Congress stalwarts decided to keep away from the function programme.
The Congress leaders who served as ministers in Kamal Nath-led government allege that the ceremony was completely turned into ‘BJP Limited function’.
Ex-minister Harsh Yadav claimed that he did not get any invite from anyone for the programme.
The formation of cabinet and the searing in ceremony is not about a party but, it represents people of the state, said the former minister, adding, that by not inviting the elected public representatives (MLAs) of the opposition party in the ceremony indicates that the ruling BJP government has lost all moral and ethics of democracy.
The former public relation minister PC Sharma also expressed his annoyance for not being invited to the programme. Talking to Free Press, the former minister said that in a democracy, opposition is equally needed to run the assembly, and when new members are inducted in the assembly or in the cabinet, it is the duty of the ruling party to ensure that leaders of the opposition party were included in such official programme. The swearing-in ceremony turned out to be a ‘BJP Limited Programme’, he quipped.
The Congress state general secretary Rajiv Singh too claimed that no invitations were sent to the party leaders for the ceremony.
