Bhopal, Aug. 30: In Gujarat, the BJP was accused of poaching on Congress MLAs, targeting the rival's higher echelons. In Madhya Pradesh, it is being charged with infiltrating the Congress at the grassroots to sabotage the party's organisational polls.

State unit president Arun Yadav recently called up Rahul Gandhi in Oslo to complain about what former party chief Sitaram Kesri used to call " phool chhap Congressis" --- Congress members who secretly supported the BJP.

Rahul, touring Norway as part of a parliamentary delegation, was told that some BJP members had become block returning officers (BROs) for the Congress's ongoing internal elections.

Since the block is the lowest level where organisational polls are held, such appointments can pass under the radar. The suspicion is that some bigwig defectors to the BJP are pulling the strings through their loyalists, who are ostensibly still in the Congress, to get several "moles" appointed as Congress BROs.

Ajay Singh, leader of the Opposition in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly, who tends to disagree with Yadav on most issues, has backed the state unit chief's accusation.

Singh, a five-time MLA and son of the late Arjun Singh, is camping in Delhi to brief Sonia Gandhi and other party seniors about the trend.

The alarm raised by Yadav and Singh has forced the party's central election authority, responsible for conducting "free and fair" organisational polls, to stall the exercise in Madhya Pradesh, where the party has been out of power since 2003.

Yadav told The Telegraph that some Sangh-BJP "elements" had "sneaked into" the Congress poll process machinery.

The BROs conduct elections to the 21-member block-level party executive, which includes the block president, vice-president, general secretaries, treasurer and an executive committee.

These block-level representatives play a key role in electing district and state-level party panels. The district Congress committee members are part of the electoral college that elects the All India Congress Committee, whose members pick the Congress Working Committee. State committee members elect the party national president.

It's the party's central election authority, headed by Kerala MP Mullapally Ramachandran, that appoints BROs but it often takes advice from local politicians.

Yadav quoted from a written complaint by the Congress MLA from Bahoriband, Sourabh Singh, which says that state BJP minister Sanjay Pathak, who was in the Congress till 2014, had got some of his supporters appointed as Congress BROs.

Such things are possible because when a senior politician defects, it remains unclear who among his grassroots supporters has left with him and who hasn't.

Party membership - and possible dual membership --- often remains a misty and un-audited area in the country, partly because of non-functioning local units and partly because of parties' tendency to exaggerate their memberships.

According to Yadav, Pathak's objective is to keep the district Congress unit in his Assembly constituency, Katni, under his control. Pathak is an influential and controversial figure in the state's Mahakaushal region, which sends 38 MLAs to the Assembly and seven MPs to the Lok Sabha.

Yadav said that Pathak still had a good rapport with several senior Congress leaders but declined to name them.

"All I can say is: because of undue interference by some senior party leaders in the state, genuine and hardworking Congress activists are not getting a chance."

Party sources said Yadav and Singh were also intrigued how grassroots workers like Dinesh Dubey of Jabalpur, who is believed to have switched loyalties to the BJP in 2014, had managed to become BROs.

Congress sources from Ujjain and Gwalior too have complained that local BJP ministers have planted some of their supporters as Congress BROs.

Last week, a state Congress meeting witnessed fireworks when Yadav allegedly told central observers Rajkumar Kataria and J.R. Kansana that several BJP members, some of them accused of rape charges, were on the list of BROs sent by the central election authority.

Despite its high-sounding name, the central election authority hardly inspires much confidence within the Congress.

Ramachandran and the other two members --- Bhubaneswar Kalita and Madhusudan Mistry --- are seldom seen together at the authority's office, Room No. 39, located at the entrance to the party headquarters, 24 Akbar Road.

Just as well, too. For a 6ft by 4ft room, even if deemed sufficient for the supervision of internal polls in a party that claims 2 crore members, is hardly capable of sitting too many people at the same time.