On July 24, the Ranchi Police arrested three men—Abhishek Dubey, Amit Singh and Nivaran Prasad Mahto—accusing them of being part of a conspiracy to bring down the Jharkhand government through ‘engineered defections’ (read: by bribing MLAs to switch parties). According to the cops, Dubey, Singh and Mahto said they had accompanied three Jharkhand MLAs to Delhi on July 15, where a meeting was arranged between them and senior BJP leaders. They alleged the MLAs were offered Rs 1 crore each as advance payment for their role in the conspiracy; Singh said he was told on July 21 that eight state MLAs were in on the plan, and that efforts were on to entice four more into the attempt to bring down the Jharkhand government.