Bhopal: With elections scheduled to take place this year in Madhya Pradesh, a resurgent Congress is going all-out to unseat the Bharatiya Janata Party which has been in power for the last 15 years in the state.
However, sources say the Congress is struggling to put its own house in order as the party is top heavy with many heavyweight leaders vying to lead it in the elections.
Scindia family scion and the former Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has been demanding for a chief ministerial candidate since 2016. He reiterated his stand yet again on Tuesday.
"Every party has different policies for each state. I am not saying that we have to project a face in every state, but where you have faces, you have to project one," Scindia, Lok Sabha MP from Guna, said in an interview.
"I have made this statement earlier and I am making it today also. This is not confined to Madhya Pradesh only, but for the entire country," he added.
Party seniors, including Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Ajay Singh and state-in-charge Deepak Babaria, have been repeatedly rebuffing such demands, saying it’s not Congress tradition to project a CM ahead of elections.
Sources said the party’s apprehensions emanate out of the fact that its state unit has been a divided house with regional leaders of national repute enjoying sizable clout in their respective areas. Congress leaders off the record accept that the party has always fought elections regionally under respective leaders who come together after the polls.
It’s a trend that after every major party meet, it's debated who was present and who was absent rather than the issues.
Similarly, party seniors have seldom shared the dais in last few years barring rare occasions like when party candidates filed nominations for the bypoll in Mungaoli and Kolaras when excluding Digvijay Singh, busy in Narmada Parikrama, all the senior leaders were present.
Among party seniors, Scindia enjoys undisputed followership in Gwalior-Chambal belt, AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh in central MP and other areas while party veteran Kamal Nath’s is also robust in tribal belts especially in Mahakaushal region, which includes his home town Chhindwara.
With Singh not contesting any election after 2003, Scindia and Nath’s clout remained intact even during PM Narendra’s Modi wave in 2014 when both managed to win from Guna and Chhindwara respectively as their party colleagues bit the dust.
It is said the Singh ‘Narmada Parikrama’ was an attempt to remind the party of his relevance in state politics despite 'hibernation' of over 15 years.
Sources said Nath, at the stroke of 72, is nurturing political aspirations from MP before retiring. The case for Singh, 71, is not too dissimilar.
With his son Jaivardhan, an MLA from his hometown Raghogarh, Singh could well be preparing the political ground for his wife Amrita Rai, a former TV journalist, said political analysts.
Singh, who was Chief Minister from 1993 to 2003, enjoys sizable backing among the party cadre. In this context, his revival through Narmada Parikrama has alarmed many, they added.
However, party president Rahul Gandhi is known to favour younger faces and is fond of Scindia, 47. Further, the manner in which Singh was shunted from party’s responsibilities in Goa, Karnataka and Telangana, does not bode well for him, sources said. Singh could well settle for Nath, ‘his old friend’, leading the party in MP so that he has some say in party affairs in case the party zeroes in on Scindia for 2018 polls, they added.
Above all, if Scindia manages to help Congress win both the by-polls, his candidature as CM face would be almost sealed.
Meanwhile, supporters of party state head Arun Yadav have also been pitching for his candidature. Seniors like Ajay Singh and Suresh Pachauri, former union minister, could rally around him if the need be, analysts said.
“It’s catch-22 situation for Congress in MP. They need to tell leaders about their specific roles ahead of the assembly polls but while doing so they also run the grave risk of triggering a massive internal rebellion,” said a political commentator from MP.
Comments
0 comment