Comments
Our Bureau The Congress’s debacle in Madhya Pradesh — with even party bigwig Jyotiraditya Scindia, among the few to beat the Modi wave in 2014, trailing by over 1,22,232 votes in his bastion Guna — translates into the party staring at loss of government in the State.
Speaking to reporters on Thursday, 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.
Only in Chief Minister Kamal Nath’s constituency Chhindwara was his son Nakul Nath leading in the counting trends till late afternoon. In the rest of the 28 constituencies, BJP candidates were leading by huge margins — Pragya Singh Thakur was leading over former CM Digvijaya Singh with over 23,070 votes, Prahlad Patel in Damoh by 2,26,919 votes, Rakesh Singh in Jabalpur by 40,749 votes and Mahendra Singh Solanki in Dewas by 3,53,303 votes.
Thakur, an accused in the Malegaon blast case who was fielded in Bhopal by the BJP to demonstrate what the party calls a “satyagraha against Congress for defaming Hindus with saffron terror conspiracy”, helped consolidate the Hindu sentiment by her radical posturing.
Ominous signs
The signs are ominous for Kamal Nath, the Chief Minister who has a wafer-thin majority in the 230-member Assembly, where a lone BSP MLA has joined its tally of 114 MLAs. While one more BSP member, one SP member and four independents have so far supported the Congress, the BJP, which has 109 MLAs, has already raised a demand for a special session to discuss issues such as law-and-order and water crisis in the State.
The BJP has claimed that Congress MLAs are “unhappy”. The M.P. BJP’s unit head Rakesh Singh, who was leading in the Jabalpur seat over the Congress’s Vivek Tankha by over 4,07,491 votes, today hinted at his party’s immediate plans for Madhya Pradesh.
“Kamal Nath should resign because of the pathetic performance of his party in the elections. They have lost the support of the people,” he said.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.