MP Cong plans united show at rally
The faction-riddled Madhya Pradesh Congress has planned to put up a unity show at a farmers’ rally at Lahaar on Monday as it looks for a winning formula ahead of the 2018 assembly polls.
The kisan sammelan — billed as the biggest farmers’ rally organised by the party in the recent past — though is essentially a show of party’s four-time MP Jyotiraditya Scindia. All Congress stalwarts from the state are expected to attend it, party sources said.
Former Union minister Kamal Nath, AICC general secretary Digvijaya Singh, leader of Opposition Ajay Singh, senior state leader Suresh Pachauri, Congress state president Arun Yadav, among others, will share the dais to revive the party’s ‘Dabra’ spirit.
The ‘Dabra’ spirit is the Holy Grail for the Congress’s unity in the state. In 1993, the late Madhavrao Scindia initiated a conclave of senior Congress leaders in Dabra, a small town 45km from Gwalior, just before the 1993 assembly elections where they managed to succeed in coming to power by defeating the BJP.
The BJP, which wrested back power in 2003, is ruling the state for the past 17 years.
Among others, many attribute the party’s poor show in the state to differences among senior state Congress leaders. But in the growing discontentment among farmers, especially after the killing of six cultivators in police firing and lathi charge in Mandsaur in the first week of June, the Congress sees a political opportunity to dethrone the BJP.
“The party raised farmers’ issues through kisan sammelans and meetings in the past month. It started with Scindiaji’s satyagraha in Bhopal and followed by rallies in Mhow, Khalghat and Mandsaur,” said state Congress spokesperson KK Mishra.
After Lahaar in Bhind district, two other rallies will be organised in Veerpur in Gwalior and Churhat in Sidhi district. Churhat is the assembly constituency of Ajay Singh, son of former Congress leader late Arjun Singh.
Singh, whose father was part of the Dabra conclave, told to HT, “Though the Dabra spirit was of a different era, it is also true that for the past two-three months we are moving in that direction and the Lahaar convention is a step towards it.” The fact that Lahaar is the constituency of Congress MLA Govind Singh, who is closer to Digvijaya Singh than Scindia, too has not gone unnoticed in political circles. The party, meanwhile, has pulled out all the stops to make the rally a success.