One of the four “missing” Congress MLAs in Madhya Pradesh has sent his resignation letter to the Assembly Speaker amid the Bharatiya Janata Party’s alleged attempts to destabilise the state government, reported NDTV.

Hardeep Singh Dang, the MLA from Suwasra, accused the Congress of factionalism and corruption. However, Assembly Speaker NP Prajapati said Dang had not submitted the resignation to him in person, and that appropriate steps will be taken once it was done, The Hindu reported.

Chief Minister Kamal Nath said he had heard the news of Dang’s resignation, but had not received any letter from him. “Until I meet him personally, making comments over it will not be appropriate,” Nath said.

On Tuesday, the Congress had alleged that 10 MLAs who support its government in Madhya Pradesh had been taken by the BJP to the Gurugram hotel. Late that night, the party claimed to have “rescued” six of them – four of the Congress and one each of the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.

However, four MLAs remained missing and were allegedly taken to Bengaluru. This included three Congress MLAs – Hardeep Singh Dang, Raghuraj Kansana and Bisahu Lal Singh – and Independent MLA Shera Bhaiya. On Thursday, the Congress claimed that the BJP had “abducted” 14 of its MLAs , but details of this allegation are not clear.

In the 230-seat Madhya Pradesh Assembly, the Congress has 114 MLAs and the BJP has 107. Out of the rest of the seats, the BSP has two and the Samajwadi Party has one. Four are Independent MLAs, while two seats are currently vacant.

Resignation letter

In his resignation letter, Dang alleged that none of the ministers in the Kamal Nath government was ready to work “as they are part of a corrupt government”. He claimed that he had to make multiple trips to Bhopal to get the “smallest work of party workers done”, and sometimes even that would not work. Dang also wrote a separate letter to Chief Minister Kamal Nath, describing his grievances.

“As a result, development works like irrigation scheme, road construction, compensation in case of 100% damage to crops in floods, crop loan amount, bonus, self help groups, loan waiver, laptops to students, etc were not being completed,” Dang’s resignation letter read, according to The Hindu. The Congress leader also alleged that lack of funds would be cited for developmental work in his region but projects of “ministers and their acquaintances” would be done without any hurdles.

He attributed his problems to not being a part of “the Kamal Nath, the Digvijaya Singh or the Jyotiraditya Singh faction”. He said: “I have been only with the Congress.”

Meanwhile, BJP MLA from Vijayraghavgarh in Katni district Sanjay Pathak has claimed there is a threat to his life and dismissed speculation that he would switch sides to the Congress, reported PTI. “Do not spread any kind of confusion, I was with the BJP, I am with the BJP and I will be part of the BJP,” Pathak said in a video statement posted on social media. “The people of the state can see what is happening to me. Just take care that I am not killed. These people can even throw me somewhere after killing for their political gains.”