"Wanted Commission Nath": Madhya Pradesh Posters Trigger BJP vs Congress

Posters accusing former chief minister Kamal Nath of corruption surfaced in election-bound Madhya Pradesh on Friday, sparking a war of words between his Congress party and the ruling BJP.

"Wanted Commission Nath," said the posters bearing Mr Nath's photo and a QR code in Bhopal's Manisha Market, Shahpura and Shaitan Singh intersection areas.

Congress came down heavily on the BJP, accusing it of "dirty politics", while the ruling party denied its involvement in putting up the posters and said it was the outcome of an internal rift in the Congress.

In Rewa district, similar posters labelled the former chief minister as corrupt, and a QR code led to the message, "Who did the farmer loan waiver scam of Rs 25,000 crore, CD scam of Rs 350 crore, mobile scam of Rs 1,963 crore, wheat bonus scam of Rs 1,178 crore, and fertiliser scam of Rs 600 crore?"

Kamal Nath, who heads the state Congress unit, denounced the posters as a futile attempt by the BJP to humiliate him and claimed that he had spotless record in his long political career.

"I was not accused in any corruption case in 47 years of my political life. Today these posters are being put up. Every leader of the BJP is involved in corruption. There can be no corruption unless the state chief minister himself is a participant in it. They have created a system of corruption from the panchayat level to the ministry. Today he has nothing left to say against me," he said.

State BJP chief VD Sharma, however, distanced himself from the issue and said the posters brought out the infighting in Congress.

He said it was a "battle of sons", referring to the sons of Mr Nath and his party colleague and former chief minister Digvijaya Singh.

"BJP leaders have nothing to do with these posters. It was put up by a rival group of Congress to defame Kamal Nath. However, all the allegations in the posters are true," said Mr Sharma.

Meanwhile, shortly after the video went viral, Youth Congress officials removed the posters from many locations and conducted a demonstration calling for action against those involved.

The Congress has been levelling corruption charges against the Shivaraj Singh Chouhan government.

At a rally in Jabalpur last month, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra accused the BJP government of being "mired in corruption", referring to the alleged corruption in Vyapam and ration distribution. She claimed that "225 scams" had occurred during the 220-month BJP rule in Madhya Pradesh.

The state is set to vote for a new government at the end of this year.