In an unanticipated blow for ruling Congress in Madhya Pradesh, 17 MLAs close to former Congress MP Jyotiraditya Scindia, who is a close aid of Gandhis, flown to BJP-ruled Karnataka in a chartered plane on Monday.

As per the reports, the leader flew to Bengaluru in a Falcon 2000 aircraft which left for Delhi at 8 am and reached Bengaluru by 10:40 am.

According to IANS, these MLAs include Bankim Silawat, the son of Congress Minister Tulsi Silawat, and Scindia’s close aide Purushottam Parashar, Rajyawardhan Singh, Pradhuman Singh Tomar, Giriraj, Raksha Sinoriya, Jaswant Jatav, Suresh Dhakad, Jajpal Singh and Brijendra Yadav.

The surprising move came on the day when the Chief Minister Kamal Nath met Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at her residence in New Delhi and briefed her about the current political situation in the state.

Last week, reports of dozen of Congress MLAs camping at a five-star hotel near Delhi had raised the question on BJP attempting to topple the government as the Congress is having a wafer-thin majority in the state.

It was reported that 10 MLAs were gone missing but later eight of them have returned back but two are still missing.

Two MLAs in the state, Raghuraj Singh Kansana, and Hardeep Singh Dang have still not been traced. However, Dang had sent his resignation to the Speaker and Kamal Nath.

BJP had also not remained untouched of the political slugfest in the state as three BJP MLAs met Chief Minister Kamal Nath on Thursday. Two of them openly revolted but the third one, Sanjay Tripathi has declined to leave the BJP.

The 49-year old Jyotiraditya Scindia had lost the race of chief ministership from Kamal Nath when the Congress managed to win with a wafer-thin margin. Despite a sizeable contribution, Scindia managed to get the support from only 23 MLAs.

Jyotiraditya Scindia’s father Madhavrao Scindia was a senior Congress leader while grandmother Vijayraje was a BJP stalwart. Junior Scindia’s two aunts are also in BJP.

Congress in Madhya Pradesh is undergoing a crisis over the past few months as the three-way split between groups led by Jyotiraditya Scindia, Chief Minister Kamal Nath and former CM Digvijay Singh are trying to prove its supremacy in the state.