Indore, Jan 16 (AHN) In an interesting turn of politics in Madhya Pradesh on Friday, State Congress President Jitu Patwari reached out to veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan in Indore.

Indore Congress District (Urban) President Chintu Choukse accompanied Patwari during a meeting held at Mahajan's residence in Indore.

The photos of the meeting shared by the State Congress Media Cell shows the trio had a healthy discussion.

"Today, I visited Sumitra Mahajan (Tai ji) and discussed contaminated water and some other important issues," Patwari later said in a statement.

Notably, people from across the political parties called Mahajan 'Tai' (elder sister) as a mark of respect.

Mahajan is among those countable from the BJP leaders, who raised apprehensions of the tragic contaminated water deaths incident in Indore's Bhagirathpura area.

Former Chief Minister and BJP MP Uma Bharti had also criticised the state government over the Bhagirathpura tragedy.

On Wednesday, Mahajan had termed the incident 'a wake-up call' for the ruling BJP.

She had described the incident as 'very painful' and said that it is the BJP that nurtured Indore over the past many years to become the cleanest city of India.

Interestingly, this meeting came a day before Congress leader and the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, is scheduled to arrive at Indore's Bhagirathpura where more than 15 people died and several others were affected due to consumption of contaminated water.

According to the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee, Rahul Gandhi would arrive in Indore around 11 a.m. on Saturday and will directly visit the Bombay Hospital to meet the patients and their family members.

Later on Saturday, he will also visit Bhagirathpura to meet families and patients affected by the vomiting and diarrhoea outbreak linked to water contamination.

The State Congress unit claimed that at least 24 people have died due to contaminated water in Bhagirathpura.

However, the Madhya Pradesh government in a fresh status report submitted before the Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court said on Thursday that it paid compensation of Rs 2 lakh to the families of 21 people in Indore's Bhagirathpura area who might have died, though all were not medically corroborated to have been caused by water contamination.