GWALIOR: While rumours of differences within the Congress have been swirling ever since the Maoist attack at Darbha on May 25, Madhya Pradesh BJP on Thursday, for the first time, named senior Congress leader and former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi as one who had a hand in the "conspiracy”, because of which the Maoists succeeded in eliminating three top Congress leaders of the state along with 26 others. Madhya Pradesh BJP president Narendra Singh Tomar levelled the direct accusation against Jogi while addressing the BJP state executive.

In fact, every speaker at the executive, including the party's national general secretary Ananth Kumar and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, raised questions on Jogi’s alleged role in the conspiracy. Kumar also accused the Congress of following a dual policy on Maoism and asked the rival party to immediately expel all Maoist sympathizers from the National Advisory Council. He named Dr Vinayak Sen as one of the alleged sympathizers accommodated in the planning commission as an advisor by the UPA government.

Charging that Jogi always said Maoism was a "social movement” to scuttle all internal security operations, BJP MP Rakesh Singh said, "We demand an investigation into the role of Ajit Jogi in this conspiracy.”

"Before the creation of Chhattisgarh state, we worked together in the Madhya Pradesh assembly with Karma, Patel and Mudaliar,” state BJP chief Narendra Singh Tomar said. "We are saddened and still grieving their death but the Congress wants to play politics over dead bodies of its own leaders. And the manner in which Jogi reacted, it seems as if no one else but he who has a hand in the conspiracy.”

Speaking to reporters in the evening, senior BJP leader and party in-charge of Madhya Pradesh Ananth Kumar said it was Jogi and AICC general secretary Digvijay Singh who repeatedly sympathised with the red insurgents in Chhattisgarh. "In 2010, Naxals massacred 76 CRPF jawans in Dantewada district. Then home minister P Chidambaram equated Naxalism with terrorism. But 24 hours later, a letter from Digvijay and Jogi's pressured Chidambaram into eating his words,” said Kumar.

