Days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost to the Congress during the Damoh Assembly by-poll, the party’s Madhya Pradesh unit served a notice to former minister Jayant Malaiya and suspended his son Siddharth and five others from the party on Friday, party’s state media co-ordinator Lokendra Parashar said in a statement.
“Five mandal heads and district training cell head Siddharth Malaiya has been suspended from primary membership of the party over anti-party activities in Damoh and former MLA Jayant Malaiya has been served show cause notice on similar reason by the state head Vishnu Datt Sharma,” Parashar said.
The leaders in question have been asked by the party to furnish their replies within the next ten days.
BJP’s Rahul Lodhi, who lost to Congress candidate Ajay Tandon by 17,097 votes, blamed Malaiya and his son Siddharth for his defeat and urged the party to take action against them. However, Malaiya later rejected the allegations, saying public anguish had led to Lodhi’s defeat. Lodhi had left Congress last year ahead of the by-polls.
MP Home minister Narottam Mishra too had blamed internal sabotage for the loss.
In a minor bureaucratic reshuffle on Friday, the state government also removed Damoh collector Tarun Rathi and posted him as Deputy Secretary in the ministry. Reacting to Rathi’s removal, the state Congress unit said that the BJP had punished the district collector for its loss in the by-poll.
Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here