Kamal Nath leads race to become Madhya Pradesh chief minister

Kamal Nath is the clear front runner for the post of Madhya Pradesh chief minister but, if the scenes at the Congress office in Bhopal on Tuesday are anything to go by, Jyotiraditya Scindia may also stake his claim before party president Rahul Gandhi.
Supporters of both Nath, the party’s state unit chief, and Scindia, the head of the party’s campaign committee in the state, indulged in competitive sloganeering outside the office, even as the party was neck and neck with the BJP after several rounds of counting.

Nath’s supporters told ET that the longtime Member of Parliament from Chhindwara was made state president by Gandhi keeping in mind that he would be made the CM too, and that he also had the backing of senior party leader and former chief minister Digvijaya Singh.

The tight win in Madhya Pradesh made the choice of Nath a foregone conclusion, according to some party members, given his ability to “take everyone together”, deal with potential allies such as the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, and keep the acrimonious Congress flock in the state together. Scindia could be made the deputy CM, some indicated.

Both Nath and Scindia arrived in the same car at the Congress office in the morning amid jubilant scenes and stayed closeted on the fourth floor of the building all day, monitoring the results sitting in the same room along with Digvijaya Singh. As they entered the building, Scindia let Nath take the lead. Outside the office, however, their supporters appeared to be engaged in a battle of sorts with each other all day. Nath’s supporters occupied the porch shouting slogans that he be made the CM while Scindia’s supporters were at the gate, carrying giant cut-outs of the scion of the erstwhile royal family and trying to outshout Nath’s supporters with slogans for their “Maharaja” as CM.

Until a day earlier, the office façade had only one giant poster with a big picture of Nath proclaiming victory for the Congress in advance and saying there would be a “Kamal Nath government”. Overnight, though, a large number of pro-Scindia hoardings also came up at the Congress office with his cut-outs and his supporters camped at the office gate, shouting slogans in Scindia’s favour and bursting firecrackers as the leads showed the Congress ahead. Later, many more posters in support of Nath sprouted in and around the office.

Nath, 71, may have the last laugh because of his seniority, apart from being credited with running a meticulous campaign with a renewed strategy and infusion of funds which seem to have enabled the party to take on the formidable election fighting machine of the BJP. This may be the case even as Scindia was clearly the more popular Congress leader in the state, evoking far more vigorous crowd response during rallies, and was also a more recognisable face of the party across the state.

Some Congress leaders argued that “age is on Scindia’s side” and that Nath is better equipped and more deserving to be the CM after he helped the party defeat the entrenched BJP. Nonetheless, the party will have to handle the issue carefully so as not to alienate Scindia’s supporters in the runup to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls given his support base in the Gwalior region. “We are sure that Scindia will also be rewarded for the MP win,” said a leader, who did not wish to be identified.