If wishes were horses, Kamal Nath would have been a jockey. The former Madhya Pradesh chief minister and state Congress unit chief is plotting a comeback in the central Indian state where his party lost power in March this year. Crucial bypolls are being held on November 3 in 28 assembly seats which will have a bearing on the continuation of the Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP regime in the state.
Purely in terms of numbers, Nath’s mission to dislodge Chouhan appears ambitious. In the house of 230, the Congress has 88 MLAs, so it needs to win all the 28 seats to beat the BJP. The ruling party, on the other hand, is sitting pretty with 107 MLAs. There are 4 independent MLAs, 2 from BSP and a lone Samajwadi Party MLA who are currently supporting Chouhan.
This cluster of seven MLAs was backing Kamal Nath from December 2018 till March 2020 when 22 Congress MLAs, considered loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia, had resigned, reducing the Nath government to a minority. As the effective strength of the MP assembly got reduced, independents, SP and BSP MLAs switched sides to help Chouhan muster majority in the state assembly.
Nath is now counting on the BSP, SP and independents to turn the tables on Chouhan. As per his calculations, if the Congress is able to net 20 out of the 28 seats in the bypolls, he would be back in business. A tally of 20 on November 3 could take the Congress figure to 108, a seat more than the BJP’s 107. Nath is counting on two disgruntled BJP MLAs, SP, BSP and independents to stage a comeback.
Nath is also drawing strength from state BSP chief Ramakant Pippal’s “neutral remarks.”. Pippal, instead of canvassing support for the BJP or Chouhan in the bypolls, is projecting the BSP as a “kingmaker” in the November 3 scenario. “We are going to win at least 10 seats out of the 28 where bypolls would be held. With these wins, we are going to emerge as a kingmaker. We will certainly play a crucial role in forming the next government,” Pippal told local media, adding, “The ruling BJP needs to win nine of these seats to enjoy a majority (116) on its own in the House. But some surveys have predicted that it cannot win more than four seats.”
Paradoxically, while two BSP MLAs are supporting the Chouhan regime in the state assembly, the BSP has fielded 27 nominees in the bypolls against the BJP and the Congress.
While 22 Congress MLAs had defected with Scindia in March, three more resigned subsequently to join the BJP. Another three MLAS died, two from the Congress and one from the BJP, necessitating bypolls in 28 assembly segments.
On the face of it, the BJP is confident of staying in power in Madhya Pradesh as victory in even nine out of the 28 seats would give Chouhan enough numbers not to bother about the SP, BSP and the independents. But some ground-level surveys, reportedly conducted by organisations and individuals considered sympathetic to the BJP, have presented a rather dismal scenario, a possibility that Pippal and Nath have been harping on.
Sources close to Chouhan insist that Nath’s “calculations” and talks of winning 20 or more seats are part of a “bravado” and to keep the morale of the Congress cadre high. Chouhan’s close aides exude confidence that the BJP would win at least 16 seats in the bypolls.
Interestingly, there are 14 ministers in the Chouhan cabinet who are not members of the state assembly. All of them are in the electoral fray. In eight assembly polls, the Congress has given tickets to those who had contested the 2018 assembly seats as BJP nominees. The BJP, on the other hand, has given tickets to 25 Congress MLAs who had resigned before defecting to the BJP. In such a bizarre situation, the issue of betrayal and disloyalty has blurred.
There are 16 bypolls in the Gwalior-Chambal region, considered a strong citadel of the Scindia family. For the first time in many decades, the Congress is fighting elections in the region without a Scindia scion. Nath has deputed a party worker on every 20 voters. He has a band of over two lakh fifty thousand workers for these 28 bypolls.
Leaving nothing to chance, Chouhan has deputed BJP office bearers, members from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha to look after individual bypoll assembly segments. The chief minister was recently spotted kneeling on the dais to thank voters and party workers for their support. The incident took place at Suwasra in Mandsaur district where Chouhan’s current ministerial colleague Hardeep Singh Dang had won the 2018 assembly polls by a thin margin of 300 votes. “You gave us all the seats, save for a 300 [vote] margin on only one of them. But you will rectify that this time, won’t you?” Chouhan was quoted saying. For many political analysts and observers, the move to kneel and appeal indicates Chouhan’s anxiety for six seats where the margin of victory in 2018 was narrow.
(The author is a senior journalist. Views expressed are personal.)
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