Leaders lock Cong office fearing Muslim leader's resignation

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Congress party is slipping from bad to worse with the approaching last phase of urban civic polls. Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) leaders on Friday afternoon ordered main gates of party office be locked as news spread about party's minority cell co-ordinator Mohammad Salim was going to submit his resignation.
Gates were ordered shut so that Salim could not get in.
On Thursday, Congress received a jolt as one of its candidates from ward 70 of Bhopal, Jyoti Chouhan, withdrew her nomination paving way for an unopposed victory in favour of her BJP rival Sushma Chouhan. Thereafter, Jyoti joined BJP with her husband Suresh Chouhan, an office-bearer of the district Congress. Four Muslim supporters of the Congress party also joined the BJP with Surah Chouhan.
State Congress, already in a shock over Jyoti's turn-coat act, went into frenzy when word reached the Congress office on Friday that another Muslim face of party was on his way with a resignation letter.
PCC office-bearers shut doors of their individual offices and desperately tried contacting state party president Arun Yadav. But Yadav himself has gone underground since Tuesday late night hours. Sources in the party office said that AICC has been frantically calling to establish contact with the state Congress president but his cell phones remained switched-off.