Madhya Pradesh Congress fears migration again
Bhopal: Recall March 2020, when 22 Congress MLAs (mostly loyal to Jyotiraditya Scindia) walked out from the Congress, ending the 15-month-old Kamal Nath-led Congress rule in Madhya Pradesh.
Nearly four years later, the grand old party is apprehensive of another exodus of its current and former MLAs in Madhya Pradesh if its former state party chief Kamal Nath or his first-time MP son Nakul Nath or both of them join the BJP.
The Congress central leadership, including Sonia Gandhi and her MP son Rahul Gandhi, is reportedly making every possible effort to convince Nath to respect his decades-old relationship with the party and not join the BJP. However, the state Congress leadership in Bhopal is also engaged in damage control.
The state Congress leadership says that neither Kamal Nath nor any other former or sitting MLA will join the BJP.
However, it is already talking to its 66 sitting MLAs individually to ensure that there is no loss to their ranks ahead of the arrival of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Nyay Yatra in Madhya Pradesh on February 22 or There should be minimal loss.
Sources in the Nath camp said that if Nath actually joins or his son Nakul Nath and daughter-in-law Priya Nath also join the BJP, he will not be alone. It will have 15-20 sitting MLAs, 5-8 former MLAs (many of whom lost the 2023 assembly elections) and two mayors.
Most of the sitting MLAs who may join the BJP along with Nath and his family include six MLAs from Chhindwara and Pandhurna districts besides MLAs from nearby Balaghat, Seoni, Mandla and Dindori districts.
These districts are a part of Nath’s home constituency – Mahakaushal – which elects 17 of the current 66 Congress MLAs.
MLAs from the Mahakoshal constituency include all six MLAs from Chhindwara and Pandhurna districts (Nath is the seventh MLA), which form Chhindwara, the Lok Sabha constituency of Nath’s son Nakul Nath.
The list also includes some senior and first-time MLAs from nearby districts, including former minister and third-time MLA from Jabalpur-East Lakhan Ghanghoria, second-time MLA from Parswada seat Madhu Bhagat, Baihar MLA Sanjay Uike and Varasivani MLA. . Vicky Patel.
Not only MLAs from the tribal-dominated Mahakoshal region, but some loyalists and MLAs close to Nath from other areas may also join the BJP along with their leader.
Apart from this, Congress has lost several big seats in the 2023 assembly elections, including former ministers Sajjan Singh Verma, Tarun Bhanot, Vijayalakshmi Sadho, Ravi Joshi and Sukhdev Panse (Verma and Panse are reportedly camping in Delhi) and the fourth candidate from Chhindwara seat. Former Bar MLA Deepak is included. Saxena (who vacated his seat for Nath in 2018) is also likely to follow Nath.
However, it is not clear whether senior MLA from Rajpur-ST seat and former Home Minister Bala Bachchan will also join the BJP along with Nath.
