BJP's top brass unhappy after two party MLAs cross-vote in MP Assembly

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The top brass of the Bharatiya Janata Party is reportedly unhappy after two party MLAs cross-voted in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly on Wednesday.

The cross-voting from Beohari MLA Sharad Kol and Maihar MLA Narayan Tripathi - both former Congressmen - has come as a massive shot in the arm for the Congress, especially after the debacle in Karnataka where the party's coalition government with Janata Dal Secular came crashing down. For the BJP though, the Karnataka elation was followed quickly by the shock of the cross-voting as Congress managed to get the Penal Code Amendment Bill passed in the state Assembly with 122 votes.

It has now been learnt that the party high command in New Delhi was busy taking reports on this from BJP's MP leaders to ascertain how and why the two MLAs sided with the Kamal Nath government on the bill. Reasons for the possible discontentment of both Kol and Tripathi, and why these were not addressed earlier are being looked into.

It has also been learnt that the party HQ is not too pleased with some of the statements made by BJP leaders in MP related to the 'shaky' future of the Congress government in the state.

Congress, meanwhile, is in a celebratory mood - at least in MP. Kamal Nath had already challenged BJP to bring in a no-confidence motion against his government. He had said that Congress MLAs are not for sale - a reference to accusations of horsetrading made against the BJP in Karnataka.