MP energy minister left red-faced as power goes off during press conference

india

Updated: Aug 20, 2019 22:27 IST

Madhya Pradesh’s energy minister Priyvrat Singh faced some embarrassing moments on Tuesday when power supply to the state Congress office was disrupted during a press conference he was addressing.

Congress government and the opposition BJP have been trading charges and counter-charges for several months. The BJP claims power cuts in Madhya Pradesh are frequent under the Kamal Nath government.

Ironically, the energy minister was telling media persons about achievements of the Congress government on the power generation front when the outage left him red-faced and journalists burst into laughter. However, the power supply was restored soon.

Singh was quick to see a conspiracy behind the power cut.

“This seems to be a conspiracy. For, had it been a power-cut due to any technical reason the power supply would not have been restored within a minute or so,” he said.

#WATCH Madhya Pradesh: Power cut during press conference of State Energy Minister Priyavrat Singh at Congress Office in Bhopal pic.twitter.com/1Z6qjDSL78 — ANI (@ANI) August 20, 2019

When power cuts became a major issue in the state during Lok Sabha elections the Congress leaders repeatedly blamed the ‘BJP-minded’ employees in the power distribution companies for the power cuts. The BJP, in turn, blamed the Congress government for its alleged failure in power distribution management.

State BJP leader Dr Hitesh Bajpai said, “The power cut corroborated our stand. Entire state is facing problems due to frequent power cuts. The government which is busy only in transfer industry has no time to look into the power management.”

The Congress dislodged BJP government after a gap of 15 years in December last year.