The delay in appointing a new president for the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC) has aggravated the Kamal Nath vs Jyotiraditya Scindia “battle” in the state, with supporters loyal to each faction openly calling for the appointment of their respective leaders as the next chief.
The incumbent Arun Yadav—a former Lok Sabha member, who also served as Union minister in the Manmohan Singh Cabinet—was appointed the MPCC chief in January 2014. He completed his three-year fixed tenure long ago. During his tenure, he tried his best, but was unable to revive the Congress in the state. “Congress has too many influential leaders in the state. Arun Yadav was seen as a neutral person, who had good ties with all the stalwarts, but despite his best efforts, he could not do much for the party as infighting and clashes of interests among party leaders hurt his work. Now we need someone who is ‘strong’ and both Kamal Nath and Scindia are influential in that sense,” a party spokesperson said.
Supporters of the two warring factions have created multiple Facebook pages that call for making their respective leaders the president of MPCC. Kamal Nath, according to his supporters, has been in virtually every political post except that of state Chief Minister and feels that the 2018 Assembly elections are his last chance to try for the post, as he will be 76 when Assembly elections are held in 2023. “Scindia has age on his side, Kamal Nath does not and that’s why this rivalry,” a Bhopal-based political observer said.
In an interview to this newspaper, Scindia was asked whether he wanted to be MPCC chief, to which he replied, “I am a loyal soldier of the party and whatever decision the party takes, I am more than willing to play my role and do my duty. I have always worked tirelessly for the development and progress of Madhya Pradesh for the past 15 years as an MP and as a minister in the Union, and for me, my state is my first priority.”
Earlier last week, Congress MLA from Rau, Jitu Patwari, who was in the limelight for allegedly inciting people to stage violent protests in Mandsaur, openly called for making Kamal Nath the MPCC president, while addressing an event in Chhindwara, Kamal Nath’s parliamentary constituency. Patwari, who is considered close to party vice-president Rahul Gandhi, had taken Rahul Gandhi on his bike when the Gandhi scion was trying to enter Mandsaur during the recent farmers’ protest. Patwari was accompanied by Kunal Choudhary, president of the Madhya Pradesh Youth Congress, when the former called for making Kamal Nath MPCC president.
Choudhary told The Sunday Guardian that the opinion of the state party workers regarding who the next MPCC president should be was clear from what was said in the programme. “There are videos and news clippings of that programme and it is very clear from them who should be the next MPCC chief,” Choudhary said.
Supporters of Kamal Nath, who is a nine-time MP from Chhindwara, claim that the party would benefit more from him rather than Scindia, who represents the Guna seat in Parliament, as the “financial clout of Kamal Nath is much more than that of Scindia”.
“There is no comparison between Kamal Nath and Scindia, the latter is too junior and he does not have the capacity to run the state Congress the way Kamal Nath can, especially when one considers the condition the party is in the state. Kamal Nath can himself fund the entire campaigning of a large number of party MLAs in 2018, something that Scindia cannot. Also, Kamal Nath, because of the influential posts he has held in the past, can seek obligations from a lot of people and has excellent relations across the political, business and media spectrum,” a party functionary said.
According to Congress functionaries close to Scindia, supporters of the 70-year-old Kamal Nath had planted stories in newspapers last month that Kamal Nath would be joining the BJP. “He is a very old politician and the reports had the desired impact, as after news broke, Rahul Gandhi called Kamal Nath and spoke to him after which Nath’s supporters have become confident that it will be he who will become the MPCC chief. However, Scindia is a more acceptable face because he is young (46) and is liked by the young voters of the state. He has a clean past and is much more dynamic and enterprising than Kamal Nath. If you speak to BJP leaders in private, they will tell you that it is Scindia they find a more worthy competitor than Kamal Nath. This is also evident from the fact that whenever Scindia does any programme in the state, he is massively targeted by BJP leaders, but the same leaders go silent when Kamal Nath gets active. We need a young leader to take the party into the future, someone who has experience and also has age on his side, someone like Scindia,” said a party MLA who belongs to the Scindia group.
A Bhopal-based party spokesperson said that though Kamal Nath was too senior to Scindia, that should not be the reason why he should be selected as the MPCC chief. “There is a lot of confusion among party workers as everyone is worried that they should not be caught on the wrong side of the two factions when the announcement (regarding who will be the MPCC chief) is done. The argument that Kamal Nath has financial clout, which is needed to run the MPCC, holds little water. The MPCC has been running normally since 2003 (when the Congress lost power in the state) and it will continue to run even if Kamal Nath does not become MPCC chief,” the spokesperson said.