Madhya Pradesh polls: Two months after 'ghar-wapsi', ex-MLA, wife quit BJP again

With less than a month left for the high-octane Madhya Pradesh assembly elections, former MLAs Abhay Mishra and his wife Neelam Mishra on Wednesday resigned from the BJP, just months after being re-inducted into the ruling party.

The couple from Rewa district had joined the BJP barely two months ago, marking a 'ghar-wapsi' (homecoming) after they left the saffron party before the 2018 Assembly polls and contested elections on Congress tickets. Both the Mishras had been elected as MLAs at different times on BJP tickets.

The couple's ghar-wapsi was showcased by the BJP as a major setback to the Congress just three months before the elections. However, rifts left the Mishra couple with no choice but to leave the party again.

Their return to the BJP was facilitated by state BJP president VD Sharma and home minister Narottam Mishra. However, the decision had annoyed party leader Rajendra Shukla and he had then expressed his disappointment to the party's central leadership. As a sop, Shukla was made cabinet minister in a last-minute cabinet expansion.

Rewa's Semaria assembly constituency is being mooted as the reason behind the conflict between Shukla and the Mishras. Shukla is favouring his loyalist MLA KP Tripathi from Semaria. In the last elections, Mishra had contested against Shukla in the seat, but lost by a big margin.  

Mishra is likely to rejoin the Congress, sources told IANS, adding that he is most likely to contest the election on the party ticket either from Rewa or Semaria.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, former speaker Sriniwas Tiwari's grandson Siddharth Tiwari joined the BJP after he was denied a ticket by the Congress. Siddharth's family has been associated with the Congress for the last 50 years. His father Sundarlal Tiwari was also a Lok Sabha MP from Rewa.