BHOPAL, MAY 10: A day after the Opposition Congress announced its plan to launch street protests from May 12-20 to expose the alleged corruption by ministers in the Madhya Pradesh Government, BJP’s election in-charge for the state Venkaiah Naidu advised the ministers not to collect “chanda” (donations) in the name of the party or elections. They were warned that such complaints would be taken seriously.

The senior BJP leader was in Bhopal to supervise the party’s preparation for the polls slated later this year.

The Congress had alleged that besides Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, who was accused of favouring JP Associates in what had come to be known as dumper scam, at least eight ministers were facing corruption charges and cases were pending against them in the Lokayukta’s office.

Last week, patwaris in Jabalpur division openly accused Fisheries Minister Moti Kashyap of extorting money. Levelling specific charges against the minister, they complained to the CM and the governor that they were harassed and humiliated if the minister’s demands were not met. Though the minister denied the charge, it did not help the ruling party’s cause because the allegations were not political in nature as these were levelled by patwaris.

However, at a meeting with Naidu, some ministers reportedly said they faced corruption charges because they had to collect donations for organisational work. But Naidu said a team from the organisation would collect donations and the ministers should refrain from doing so.

This piece of advice came after the BJP state election in-charge had a meeting with seniors including Kailash Joshi, Sunderlal Patwa, Laxminarayan Pande, Mangiram Gupta, Kailash Sarang and Narayan Prasad Gupta. He also met Cabinet ministers later.

Naidu was also told that half a dozen ministers be not allowed to contest elections again because their credibility was under a cloud.