24 state ministers resign in Madhya Pradesh

"It becomes our moral responsibility and duty to step-down from ministership following the resignation of the Chief Minister", Agriculture and Cooprative Minister Gopal Bhargava told PTI.

The resignations were aimed at expressing complete solidarity with Bharti ahead of the BJP Parliam-entary Board meeting in New Delhi on Monday to consider her resignation, he said.

The ministers sent their resignations to state BJP chief Kailash Joshi.

Among those who resigned are Energy Minister Anup Mishra and Public Health Engineering Minister Sunil Naik, besides Bhargava.

Mishra said all 35 ministers in the state would resign to show their "unflinching support" for Bharti.

So far 24 ministers have resigned and the remaining would join soon, he said.

Faced with an NBW issued by a Hubli court in a rioting case, Bharati had sent her resignation to party chief Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday saying "In today's situation my resignation is necessary".

She had also sent a letter to Congress President Sonia Gandhi seeking dropping of all "tainted" ministers from the Union Cabinet.

The resignations were aimed at expressing complete solidarity with Bharti ahead of the BJP Parlia-mentary Board meeting in New Delhi tomorrow to consider her resignation, he said.

The BJP described resignations by Madhya Pradesh ministers as an "outburst of anger" against treating hoisting of the national tricolour as a "crime" and said Chief Minister Uma Bharti has asked them to take it back.

"There is anger among BJP workers and other nationalist forces that hoisting of national flag is being treated as a crime as is reflected by what has happened in the case of Bharti. These resignations are an outburst of that," party vice-president and spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told PTI.

He said there was no need for these ministers to resign and this has been conveyed to them by Bharti.