The Congress in Madhya Pradesh on Monday took a dig at BJP leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, over his “tiger is alive” remark, which he made earlier in July, quipping at his former party. 

Congress questioned Scindia’s ‘silence’ on issues like non-payment of salaries to contractual teachers and shelving of the farm loan waiver scheme by the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.

“He [Scindia] had once said [in July] that ”tiger abhi zinda hai” (tiger is still alive). Why did this tiger not venture to serve people in the Gwalior-Chambal region in the last five months? But now in this jungle raj, he is going to meet the saffron party leaders in Indore and Ujjain to retain cabinet berths for his loyalists who toppled the Congress government in March,” MP Congress media cell chairman and MLA Jitu Patwari said.

While demanding Scindia to come out to the streets, Patwani said, “…Why are you hiding in the house? Why are you in a cave with your tail down?” 

The Congress leader said that Scindia is out on a tour ‘to do political management in the wake of a petition in court challenging the over-sized Madhya Pradesh cabinet.’ He alleged that the ex-Congress leader is going door-to-door to meet BJP leaders to save his men from getting sacked from the state’s cabinet. 

“In Congress, Scindia got immense respect. He was our big leader. The party leaders used to go to his house and to be around him seeking tickets for elections,” Patwari said. 

Scindia, earlier in March this year, quit Congress and joined the BJP with over 20 MLAs, leading to the collapse of the Kamal Nath government.

Patwari said 69,000 contractual teachers have not been paid their salaries for the last three months.

“28 such unemployed teachers have committed suicide in the last three months,” he claimed.