Congress to get a body blow if Kamal Nath joins BJP

would be a logical step if Kamal Nath and his son decided to join the BJP in the coming days, as is being perceived, both in Delhi and Bhopal.

On Friday, Kamal Nath met former Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and as per party sources, sought a Rajya Sabha nomination for himself from Madhya Pradesh where the Congress can send one candidate in the forthcoming elections. However, given the fact that Rahul Gandhi is not in the mood to oblige Kamal Nath any more, the chances of him being given a Rajya Sabha nomination are remote.

A senior Congress MLA from Madhya Pradesh, while speaking to The Sunday Guardian confirmed that Kamal Nath was in talks with the BJP and that he was waiting for a better deal.

Apart from sending him to the Rajya Sabha and giving Nakul Nath a Lok Sabha ticket, sources said, the junior Nath will be given a place in the Union Cabinet that will be formed if BJP comes to power.

The same day former MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, their first meeting post the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections result. MP Chief Minister Mohan Yadav too was in Delhi on Friday, his second visit to the national capital within four days.

On Thursday, Kamal Nath met MP CM Mohan Yadav in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly building in the afternoon and by evening the district magistrate of Chhindwara, Manoj Pushp, a 2001 batch IAS officer, was transferred out and made Additional Secretary, Social Justice and Disabled Welfare Department. Pushp had a tenure of less than 7 months in Chhindwara.

This added more fuel to the fire as such instances of the CM obliging an Opposition leader are rare, especially in Madhya Pradesh where the two parties have been fighting tooth and nail.

What has likely given more reasons for Kamal Nath to consider moving out is the speculation that former CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan is likely to be asked to consider the Lok Sabha elections from Chhindwara, which till now has been the political fort of the Kamal Nath family.

However, in 2019 BJP came very close to breaching the citadel. Since 1952, when the first Lok Sabha elections were held, the seat has always sent a Congress candidate to Parliament except in 1997, when the BJP patriarch Sunder Lal Patwa won from there in the byelection by defeating Kamal Nath. However, in 1998, Kamal Nath again wrested the seat from the BJP.

In the 2019 elections, in which Kamal Nath left the seat in favour of his son Nakul Nath, the victory margin for the Congress came down to an alarming 37,000 votes. It was 116,000 in 2014 and 122,000 in 2009.

Political wisdom suggests that in case Chouhan is somehow made agreeable by the BJP leadership to contest from Chhindwara, it is unlikely that Congress will win from there.

Local journalists, who are based in Chhindwara and covering the region for decades, said that there was a feeling of uncertainty with speculation going around thick and fast of the veteran switching sides.

According to them, the BJP state leadership wanted Kamal Nath to join the BJP because of the political capital, both in experience and resources, that he will bring, apart from executing a massive dent to the Congress. The tales of the “management” exercise that he has done in his long career, are many. Some years ago, when the Congress was falling short of a few MLAS to send one of its nominees to the Rajya Sabha, despite exercising all the resources it could muster, it was Kamal Nath who casually called the president of another party with a request to support the

Congress candidate. In the end, the Congress candidate won. The business empire of the family, managed by his other son, Bakul Nath, is spread across India and Dubai, which also includes the renowned IMT group of colleges where many children of bureaucrats and journalists, who were deserving but were missing the cutoff by whiskers, were given admission as a favour by Kamal Nath.

All the seven MLAS from the Assembly seats that constitute the Chhindwara Lok Sabha constituency are with the Congress, but voters, as per local journalists, believe that with BJP in power in Bhopal and in Delhi, the development work will not happen unless Kamal Nath decides to move to the BJP. This win in the seven seats is attributed to the work that has been done by the former CM and according to the locals, the MLAS are merely faces, while the actual work is done by the Kamal Nath family.

Kamal Nath shares a very cordial relationship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the fact that PM Modi did not campaign in Chhindwara in 2014 Lok Sabha polls was seen as a testament to this relationship.

After the electoral loss in the November-december 2023 Assembly elections, the Congress leadership, for the first time, expressed its anger against the veteran leader, as he was given unbridled power to run the campaign in the state despite other leaders opposing such moves. Later, Jeetu Patwari, a young leader who is in direct competition with Nakul Nath, as far as emerging as a leader who can carry the Congress in the state in the future is concerned—and someone who is known for his “anti-kamal Nath” stance—was made the state president, replacing Kamal Nath, who is facing health related issues and has started reducing his public gatherings.

A top Congress leader, who is close to Kamal Nath and regularly speaks to him, told The Sunday Guardian that he has recently met him, but during their conversation he gave no hint of the possibility of him joining the BJP. However, he added that if that happens he would be “shocked”, but will understand why Kamal Nath took the step.

According to him, if this happens, the Congress in Madhya Pradesh will suffer massive damage, which will take years to repair. “Leaders like him come once in 3040 years. He, along with Digvijaya Singh, has been carrying the party on his shoulders and his entry to the BJP at this stage will be a big blow for the party,” he said.