According to sources, Kamal Nath will be giving a free hand to Digvijaya during allocation of tickets.
Supporters of former Union minister and nine-time MP from Chhindwara, Kamal Nath, who was this week appointed as the new Congress state president of Madhya Pradesh, are hoping that he would be declared the CM choice if the Congress manages to dislodge the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state.
After the results of the 1998 state Assembly elections were announced, in which Congress led by CM Digvijaya Singh had won 172 out of the 320 Assembly seats, supporters of Kamal Nath had given full page ads for two consecutive days in local newspapers suggesting that it should be Kamal Nath and not Digvijaya helming the government.
In 1998, out of the 172 Congress MLAs, almost 110 owed their allegiance to Kamal Nath and Digvijaya Singh, hence his supporters were of the view that the Central observers (Pranab Mukherjee and Tariq Anwar) would agree with the numerically strong group that was supporting Kamal Nath and announce him as the CM.
The same day, an article based on these ads, was carried in a national English newspaper suggesting that the newly elected MLAs in MP wanted Kamal Nath as the CM.
This article was also read by the then AICC president Sonia Gandhi who immediately summoned Kamal Nath, Digvijaya Singh and Tariq Anwar, who was then the general secretary in AICC and in-charge of Madhya Pradesh, to Delhi. In this meeting, Kamal Nath was reprimanded by Sonia Gandhi for trying to put pressure on the party and at the end of the meeting, Kamal Nath, who was on the verge of becoming the CM, was asked by the party high command to extend all his support to Digvijaya Singh. A dejected Kamal Nath, who came to Bhopal on the same evening, along with Digvijaya and Tariq Anwar announced to media persons, off the record, that he was no longer in the race for CM’s post. Digvijaya, after becoming the CM, made sure that Kamal Nath, was allowed to address meetings of principal secretaries and secretaries in Vallabh Bhavan, the state secretariat at Bhopal and kept state planes at his disposal and gave him the status of a permanent state guest even when he was not a Union minister nor MP. In order to make sure that he does not have to worry about challenges from Digvijaya, who among all stalwarts, has the maximum reach among the party cadre, he will be giving a free hand to Digvijaya when it comes to allocation of tickets and has also extended his support to Digvijaya’s political yatra that will cover every district and will start on 15 May.