Congress that reaching out to the BSP was imperative to prevent the BJP from regaining Madhya Pradesh for a fourth time in a row. The Congress party is also holding discussions with other like-minded parties such as Samajwadi Party (SP) and Gondwana Gantantra Party (GGP), a political outfit of the tribals. MP has 47 seats reserved for tribals.

The SP is a fringe player in Madhya Pradesh, mainly confined to Bhind and Morena districts adjoining Uttar Pradesh. But it has chipped away enough votes in successive elections in the past two decades to harm the Congress in at least a dozen seats.

Congress sources say the party might be inclined to offer 25 to 30 seats to the BSP and five to SP. However, formal discussion with either BSP supremoforums, within and outside the party, but their anguish remained largely unaddressed. Their main grouse is that while MLAs are busy feathering their own nest, the loyal rank and file often gets a raw deal from the government.

Within weeks of assuming charge, the new state Congress president transformed the look of the office from being a typically listless outpost to a buzzing corporate workplace

The cadre is also unhappy because in its view the Chief Minister has allowed himself to be surrounded by a coterie of chosen bureaucrats, who are completely cut off from the ground realities.

At the root of their disenchantment is the all-pervasive corruption in the government. The Vyapam scam, India’s biggest job-cum-admission racket, of course, is the most notorious manifestation of organised swindle that the Chouhan