Congress bares teeth at Scindia, says 'Tiger busy retaining cabinet berths for loyal MLAs'

The Congress party in Madhya Pradesh on Monday took a dig at BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia over his "tiger is alive" remark, and questioned his silence on issues like non-payment of salaries to contractual teachers and cancelling of the farm loan waiver scheme by the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led government.

Jitu Patwari said 69,000 contractual teachers in the state have not been paid their salaries since the lockdown has been imposed. He claimed that 28 such unemployed teachers have committed suicide in the last three months.

"Scindia had once said (in July) 'tiger abhi zinda hai' (tiger is still alive). Why did this tiger not venture to serve people in the Gwalior-Chambal region in the last five months? But now in this jungle raj, he is going to meet the saffron party leaders in Indore and Ujjain to retain cabinet berths for his loyalists who toppled the Congress government in March," Madhya Pradesh Congress MLA Jitu Patwari told reporters.

He said Scindia come out to the streets. Why are you hiding in the house? Why are you in a cave with you tail down?" he added.

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'Saving cabinet berths'

Patwari said Scindia is out on a tour for political management due to a petition in court challenging the over-sized Madhya Pradesh cabinet. The former Congress leader is going door-to-door to meet BJP leaders to save his men from getting sacked from the cabinet, he alleged.

Patwari said, unlike in BJP, Jyotiraditya Scindia got immense respect in Congress and he was a big leader. Other party members used to be around him, seeking tickets for elections, he added.

Scindia quit Congress and joined the BJP with over 20 loyal MLAs in March this year, which led to a collapse of the Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh.

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