Bengaluru (Karnataka): Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and other leaders were taken out of Amruthahalli Police Station in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

Singh said, “I don’t know where am I being taken. I should have been allowed to meet my MLAs. I am a law-abiding citizen.”
He added, “We will defend our government and will take back our MLAs.”

KPCC president DK Shivakumar said, “Digvijaya Singh has come to meet our party MLAs. One of the MLAs had contacted him through telephone and requested him to free them”

“Police do not have the right to block him, he wants to request higher authorities as these people are acting on instructions of Chief Minister,” Shivakumar said.

Shivakumar also hit out at the BJP government in a tweet, saying, “Police have detained me, Digvijaya Singh and other INC leaders, and are not allowing us to meet INC MLAs who are being held forcefully at a resort by BJP.”

“BJP is hell-bent on destabilizing democratically elected governments. It has strengthened our resolve to fight to save democracy,” the KPCC president said in a tweet.

Former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh who landed in Bengaluru early on Wednesday was placed under preventive arrest after he sat on a dharna near Ramada Hotel here, allegedly for not being allowed by police to meet the 21 Congress rebel MLAs lodged in a hotel.

“I am a Rajya Sabha candidate from Madhya Pradesh, voting is scheduled for March 26. My MLAs have been kept here, they want to speak to me, their phones have been snatched, the police is not letting me speak to them saying there is a security threat to MLAs,” Singh told reporters.

Digvijaya Singh & other leaders are now being taken out of Amruthahalli Police Station in Bengaluru. He says, “I don’t know where am I being taken. I should have been allowed to meet my MLAs. I am a law-abiding citizen. Sarkar bhi bachaenge aur hamare MLAs ko bhi wapas laenge.” https://t.co/tGfWcXdRIn pic.twitter.com/aWIxuxFywK

— ANI (@ANI) March 18, 2020

Singh who sat on the dharna with a face mask on said: “We were expecting them to come back, but when we saw they’re being held back, messages came from their families…I personally spoke to five MLAs, they said they’re captive, phones snatched away, there is Police in front of every room. They’re being followed 24/7,” Singh said.

The development comes amid the political crisis in Madhya Pradesh in the wake of the exit of Jyotiraditya Scindia from the Congress party. Scindia’s departure was followed by 22 Congress MLAs resigning from the party as well as from the state legislative Assembly.

The resignation of these MLAs has left the Kamal Nath government below the majority mark. (ANI)