BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party president Shivraj Singh Chauhan on Monday said that the party leadership would take a final decision on the demand for convening the State unit's Legislature Party meeting.

Mr. Chauhan was responding to queries from media persons after holding discussions with party MLAs and State Ministers here.

Monday's one-to-one discussion exercise between the State BJP chief and the MLAs had been necessitated after over 90 MLAs had met the former Chief Minister, Uma Bharti, on Sunday and signed a letter addressed to BJP president L.K. Advani seeking leadership change in the State by immediately convening the Legislature Party meeting.

On Monday morning, Chief Minister Babulal Gaur was one of the first to visit the party office to meet the president. Ms. Bharti visited the senior BJP leader and in-charge of the State party unit, Kailash Joshi, at his residence. She later met the general secretary in-charge of organisational affairs, Kaptan Singh, at his residence. She had nothing to say to the media on the issue of leadership change or the Legislature Party meeting. Most MLAs and Ministers, who met the State party president on Sunday, admitted they had been called to share their views but refused to divulge anything.

But one Minister, Gopal Bhargava, said that all those who had signed the letter addressed to Mr. Advani had demanded that the Legislature Party meeting be convened. Public Works Department Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya said it was wrong on the part of MLAs to go for a signature campaign. Mr. Kaptan Singh also shared the same view and expressed concern over the lack of discipline among the MLAs. He also said they had succeeded in redressing the MLAs' grievances.

Earlier on Monday, the Chief Minister asked the Ministers, who had signed the letter addressed to Mr. Advani, to tender their resignation saying that if they had lost faith in his leadership they should not continue as members of his team.

In a related development, the Congress appealed to the Governor to convene the Assembly to resolve the "crisis".

Memoranda presented to the Governor by Satyadev Katare, MLA, Congress Legislature Party Permanent Secretary Virendra Tiwari and others, and Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, Jamuna Devi, claimed that the Chief Minister now only had minority support.

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