New Delhi: The meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) called on Saturday to conduct a post-mortem of the near washout of the party in the Lok Sabha elections had a senior figure missing from attendance – Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath.
The meeting was attended by other party seniors, including Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi, Dr Manmohan Singh and chief ministers of Congress-ruled states among others. Jyotiraditya Scindia, who suffered a shock defeat in the stronghold of Guna, was also present.
But Nath stayed back in Bhopal as sources said he is worried that the BJP may try to topple his government, which has a wafer-thing majority, that has been plagued by infighting.
The Congress has 114 MLAs in the 230-member Assembly, where a lone BSP MLA has joined its tally. While one more BSP member, one SP member and four independents have so far supported the Congress, the BJP, which has 109 MLAs, has not shied away from making its ambitions to return to power clear.
Senior BJP leaders have earlier claimed that the government will topple if they challenge it but they preferred to wait till the national elections are over.
On Friday, BJP general secretary and former Madhya Pradesh minister Kailash Vijayvargiya hinted at a possible change of guard not just in Madhya Pradesh but also in West Bengal. “A lot of things will happen in the future, especially in Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal,” he said.
The saffron storm has reduced the Congress party to just one Lok Sabha seat out of 29 in MP, just five months after it had formed the state government. By winning 28 out of 29 constituencies, the BJP has cornered the Congress that has only the Chhindwara seat in its bag. Chhindwara was won by Nakul Kamal Nath, the Chief Minister’s son.
The Congress, which dropped to a historic low of 44 seats in 2014, could only add eight more seats to its national tally with Rahul Gandhi's nationwide campaign circling around his "Chowkidar Chor Hai" barb for PM Modi failing to translate into votes.
However, the debate over the fate of the MP government began even before the outcome of the Lok Sabha elections came out. Tensions intensified on May 21 as Nath himself claimed that the BJP was trying to lure Congress MLAs. His statement came after Leader of Opposition Gopal Bhargav wrote to Governor Anandiben Patel asking for an early session of the assembly.
However, Nath had claimed all the MLAs were in touch with each other and they had full faith in them. Pradyumn Singh Tomar, a state Cabinet minister, had even alleged that the BJP was luring Congress MLAs by offering up to Rs 50 crore. The minister, however, asserted that none of his colleagues was up for sale.