Everything appeared genuine: Jogi

It was Saturday afternoon, when TR Khunte, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member of Parliament from Sarangarh constituency who left the BJP to join the Ajit Jogi camp just before the Assembly elections, walked into the chief minister's residence in Raipur and whispered into his ear, "Sir, the situation is ripe". The message brought a smile on Jogi's face.

In fact, Khunte, a Scheduled Caste MP, had taken upon himself the task of mobilising dissidents among tribals and Scheduled Castes by using his old contacts in the BJP. A close friend of BJP "dissident" Baliram Kashyap, Khunte insisted that as many as 18 tribal leaders would breakaway from the BJP in the night and oppose the BJP's claim to form the government under the leadership of Raman Singh.

An unsuspecting Jogi trusted every word of Khunte and prepared his future moves with due care. According to the plan, Jogi was to hand over a letter of support in his capacity as the leader of the Congress Legislature Party to dissidents led by Kashyap who would go to the governor and stake his claim to form a government. Had the Jogi's scheme succeeded, he would have snatched victory from the BJP the next morning - the scheduled time for swearing in of Raman Singh.

But Jogi got a shock of his life when around 11 pm he was informed about Arun Jaitley's press conference in which audio-tape of his conversation with Virendra Pan-dey, a BJP legislator, who played another dissident and middle-man between Jogi and Kashyap, was played out.

A hassled Jogi watched the television, called a press conference to counter the charges but retreated when informed about his suspension from the Congress.

What went wrong with Jogi's meticulous plan of toppling the BJP government even before it was sworn in? Obviously, Jogi was oblivious to the strategy formulated at the BJP headquarters much before the election results were announced. The BJP leadership had identified 33 new MLAs who could be lured in by money if the BJP gets a wafer-thin majority. And they planned a counter-strategy.

The BJP leadership allowed Pandey to lay a trap for Jogi with the help of Kashyap, an ambitious tribal leader seen as prospective dissident. Kahsyap and Pandey recorded every conversation they had with Jogi and his pointman Khunte. All these tapes were swiftly collected as crucial evidences.

But the most clinching evidence was Jogi's hand-written letter to the governor pledging support to rebel BJP legislators. After hearing about the entire operation, BJP chief M Venkaiah Naidu deputed the party's most articulate face and Union Law Minister Arun Jaitley to hold the press conference and drop the "bombshell".

Jogi who rushed to Delhi this morning to hold talks with senior leaders looked crestfallen after the episode. "I never suspected this to be a trap as everything appeared so genuine," he told Business Standard.

Jogi is expected to explain his position to a group of senior leaders headed by CWC member Pranab Mukherjee tonight. But he hopes to get an one-on-one meeting with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi shortly.