Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bala Bachchan has been caught on camera purportedly telling residents of a village in Barwani district to join the ruling Congress if they want more funds for development.
As opposition BJP mounted attack on the Monday night video which has gone viral, Bachchan on Wednesday denied "luring" the people.
Bachchan was addressing a gathering of villagers during a programme organised by Patil Samaj at Jalgon.
The video shows Bachchan, who represents Rajpur Assembly seat in Barwani district, was responding to villagers who had sought funds for development works.
Asking a man from the gathering how many families from the Patil community in the village belonged to the Congress, the minister said, "We have given crores (of rupees of government funds for development), but did not get votes...people take money from us and don't give us votes."
Disclaimer: No Business Standard Journalist was involved in creation of this content